The Frailty of Vanity

He saw the light upon his face

To the simple eye

vanity is something to abhor

Yet to the beholder

No gift could mean any more

Beauty should be cherished

more than any useless virtue

for the beautiful are forgiven

More so than any of you

Yet beauty is rather useless

I won't be judged by the contents of my soul

for the concept has grown quite old

I never cared for the respect afforded to me

I always preferred the envy

I'd give my soul to hold on to my youth

and I'll the people I've yet to use

I'll go unpunished until I'm dead

or so he thought until he said

"Every deed fell upon my face

Yet for all these years they left no trace

I'd pray my wrongs could be undone

If I had known what I'd become"

He saw the light and damned it's gaze

Beauty fades while the body decays

but beauty stays while the soul is astray

This is a gift to those with vanity

but what justice could that really be?

Beauty is only skin deep

so why is it the only standard we keep

It has no practical use

yet a million forms of blatant abuse

Because of the lives you've cast aside

you wear that face as a disguise

Beauty makes it easy to hide

the ugliness inside

Every deed fell upon my face

Yet for all these years they left no trace

I'd pray my wrongs could be undone

If I had known what I'd become

Now he couldn't take the pain

this beauty was not the same

it had forsaken him after all

when his face splattered on the wall