Portrait

 

Like an onion, 

  You can tare away at my wallpaper; 

      Watch it rip in jagged layers. 

Ancient in vestige, 

   Woven and browned

Painted and cracked

  Washed over. 

Astonished still, 

  At how layered it all can be; 

  On how complex, 

    compartmentalized, 

       and stacked. 

They will tare away, 

  Only to reveal an ancient art. 

A Sacred Cow. 

  A Holy Crone. 

An Ancestor of unrivaled wrath, 

  Adorned in skulls. 

A witch burnt to the bones. 

A Great and Glorious Angel 

Dressed in the skins 

  Of Adam & Eve's roles. 

You can tare away. 

  Strip it from me. 

The shadows worn 

  Of lives and their enemies. 

It is nothing I have not endured. 

What more now? 

A painted and torn pose...

  You rip, 

  

Yet only her value grows...

  As unearthed is a form, 

         Holy Unbound. 

A forever ghost haunting the decaying portrait, 

  Echoing a primordial sound. 

A taunting stare in the eye...

  a dark justice trumpeting the soul 

    Spoken the tone of judgement. 

Morphed. 

  Something other than what she had been, 

and something she will not be for long. 

  Something dark underneath. 

Something ancient and old. Something layered and peeled 

  and peeled 

Something resembling 

  a portrait painted over 

    and over again, 

Each life, torn from it, but only down 

  the off-center. 

You can see every layered dress and smile, 

  Where the wallpaper ages and crumbles. 

You can see the life she wore. 

  The toll it tore. 

The haunt aging her eyes. 

But still what remained 

  The base of it all, 

Through every tare, 

  A striking remainder of light. 

It is an entrancing image, one that burns to the soul of your core...

  Often compared 

To looking Medusa in the eyes.