Self-imprisoned

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Gree -
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

C.S.Lewis
(via Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller)