Portrait Of Madness Poem by Teresa Dearing

The portrait reflected disillusion and pain,
Swimming in the bleak eyes on the canvas,
Painted with broken, diseased colors,
Splashed, botched like an unwanted caress.

Hypnotized I peer closer, drawn unwilling,
In fascination, my error soon revealed,
The disparaging mirror above the mantel,
Reflects the image of which I am reviled.

It once was a lovely, beautiful portrait,
Which myself and many others loved to gaze at,
But pride and evil have taken their due,
Now the image is a cracked, discolored mat.

Those that now attend me, all white coats do wear,
Shaking their heads in sorrow at my face still fair,
Only I see these images of my cursed face,
Through the eyes of madness, I lost the Devil's race.