"Perfection" Inspired by Creeping Beauty:

Perfection

You wrap perfection around yourself

and paint beauty on your face,

you go to places where you will shine

and never pause your performance.

Or so I thought.

At first, the beauty drew my eye

and the perfection put a distinct line between us.

Then I dismissed you for your vain words

and knew that you would never be more.

But I thought wrong.

In a moment away from your defenses,

bare of camouflage and striped of sarcasm,

I saw you flawed and broken—

and I saw beauty.

For a moment,

I saw you

—not your veneer—

and you were beautiful.