The sweet elixer of life doesn't
taste very sweet. Wine of old age gets drunk
off of satisfying drinker's pleasures.
It is poison, a deadly concoction that holds
you in place, while snakes twist and roll
their sacrificial saliva well worth its weight in gold.
For beauty is a thing of time, luxurious taste
and fortune, not of timeless elegance or natural age.
Beauty is twisted, and dark, and selfish.
Brandished in the light of the rich and wealthy,
injecting their toxic desires into the minds
of the innocent as they inject those same
toxins into their skin.
Fake from the inside out.
They whisper opinions into society's ear,
which turns into a grapevine — leaves shriveled,
sour grapes discarded because to recycle
or repurpose is against their values.
They think inside triangles, finding no comfort
delving into the unknown, nevermind outline
the lines of boxes thrown — with sinister intent when
they don't carry anything of value.
Used up. dried out. shriveled.
Like grapes — like faces of
the beauty industry — like society's pressures.
The opinions of society are not ours to
individually bare, because the very meaning
of beauty itself is tarnished.
Now, to have old-fashioned beauty is to have sin,
you cannot fit the unrealistic mold of beauty
without pain and self-sacrifice.
Can't we all just have our own definitions of beauty
and fit our own self-made molds instead? Society's
meaning of Beauty is redundant — only yours counts.
YOU ARE READING
Blackberry Thistles ✓
Poesíapoems as delicate as the fruit itself, and as thought-provoking as the sour aftertaste. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2019 Kate H. > third place winner of the gem-mers awards poetry section 2020
