Vanity

may be inseparable from women; more likely
women listen to the media, or else vain
to believe the importance of beauty, having no sense
to go on enriching their minds, or developing
worthy values and character traits.

Nevertheless, to be vain
is all encompassing. To focus
on every detail, seek perfection,
criticize flaws of one’s own reflection,
stay skinny, apply make-up, color hair
do no coincide with the male gender
who go un-showered, unshaved, without a care
are very much accepted by all who see
and not at all considered an anomaly.

Face it, vanity
wasn’t attached to us at birth—
only learned at will,
by the images we see
which dictate how we feel
or those words of another
(although full of lies)
that transform us all.

Only the vain have, if they will, an image
worth presenting at all.

Men say women pamper too much, are self-absorbed,
are irresponsible, buy too many creams,
forget their bills, spend all their money
in hopes of reaching their dreams.
Well, females are lucky. Let them be
pretty and made up ever so meticulously,
vain enough to care, prepared to pay
the female price, which is to spend
and spend again and again.
One is all it takes
of this impeccable gender
to testify these facts. And what women have to say
on any given day
is this: that beauty is not easily seen,
that beauty runs much deeper,
and that men have no idea or comprehension
that beauty is what, to be, a woman must have.