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