Vanity

Aging to acquire,
A vast number of experiences.
Happens much too fast.
To remain affixed to just one thing.
Mentioned by anyone,
From a past had to have lived.
Left to leave many with memories,
Relived as fresh as the scent of yesterday's...
Morning dew.

Could it be vanity,
That keeps some to perceive...
What occurred in their youth,
Stays remembered on the mind...
Of someone who spends most of their time,
Looking for a pair of matching socks.
Or keys to forget still in one's door.
But forgotten the door was opened to close.
Left unlocked.
When a neighbor knocks to ask,
'These are your keys, right?'

Is it vanity to perceive,
One is always the topic...
Of another's discussion.
To imagine why such a dramatic change,
Has someone not to be the same person.
From their elementary and high school days.
Or know nothing beyond,
Their limited to live comfort zone.
Done with a lack of life to explore,
On their own.
More to adventure or live ten minutes alone.
To stop and think.
It could be possible when people grow older,
Perhaps their childhood to live it...
Is a thing of the past.
With some close friends passed away.
Buried under growing grass in a cemetery.
With few events remembered,
That may appease someone...
Who has time to spend telling anyone,
Repeatedly over and over again.
About who did what and where to them.
When children.
To embellish and exaggerate the facts.
For the purpose to depict,
They had been victimized to portray...
Being a helpless innocent child.
Chased by a big bad wolf.
Making them to be responsible.
Discipline and accountable for their actions.
As if a parent and a guidance counselor.
With a doing it better effectively.

To have that version of self inducing vanity,
Signed, sold and delivered to the ones...
Who accept and believe,
Such vanity develops when a child...
Has been abandoned and neglected.
And struggled to obtain,
An identity to achieve.
Yet unknown to others,
How imaginative someone like this can be.
From a childish point of view.
Who has been punished.
Miles away from the adult  portrayed.
Although missing in their performance,
Is the reality faked to stage!
But is an empathy grabbing attention getter.
Capable to squeeze tears,
From a rehearsed, scorned...
And torn apart into pieces wounded heart.

'And...
May I ask,
Just who are you referring to?
I am neither vain nor self obsessed.
People enjoy it when I talk about myself.'

Are you also that distant from reality?
Look around.
Tell me this,
Is it the children needing more attention...
To get it.
Or...
Is it the adults,
Mentally childish.
Who found it too difficult to bloom.
So easy for them it is to disguise and hide,
Behind a vanity,
To turn on and off.
When an identity to keep and maintain,
Is not given but earned no adult imagines!
Yet still the child 'inside' remains determined,
To convince and prove...
In every scene created,
They have the ability to do anything.
Regardless of not having the experience!

You know...
Like an osmosis thing.

'Who is osmosis?'

Look around.
Osmosis is there and everywhere else found.
People heard to be talented and gifted,
To do this and that.
Yet the only effort the endeavor,
Are excuses to use quick and conveniently.
Although vanity is clearer to see.
Made up and free with added entertainment.
To help someone visualize possibilities,
That a duping dumped on others to do...
Is much accepted than experience to prove!
You know...
Like dishwater squeezed,
Into a glass of lemonade.
But told convincingly to the one drinking it,
The flavor and taste...
Eventually becomes savored to enjoy.
The more one sips and not gulps it down.

'That's nasty.'

That's all displaying vanity is.
Someone who pretends,
To be a virgin to reality.
And all the time,
Truth they treat as if trash!