Beauty's Elegy

Beauty is dead.
She's decaying in her casket
by common consent.
She withered and shriveled into a ghost
because our eyes no longer saw her,
glued to our synthetic screens,
while she sensually danced
begging for attention
but found no audience among this generation.

Beauty cried out but her shouts
went unnoticed among a litany
of dinging alerts
until she collapsed in the corner.
This awareness, this guilt hurts
to know we divorced Beauty
for that slut Pixel
who hides far too many secrets
beneath her flawless exterior for comfort.
Her digital surgeries are occurring every second,
wiping any trace of the real from her appearance.

Beauty, I miss you.
You didn't have to hike your up skirt
and have your tits casually falling out of your shirt
like some trashy hooker to get lookers.
Your imperfection was perfection - 
raw, real, and flushing with life.

Beauty, do we not see 
what we've done to you, to us?
Our hearts are now tangled in lust
longing for a mirage that fades
the second we close in on it.
We can no longer trust
our eyes to tell us what's attractive
because it's all deceptive,
marred by more digital makeup
that we can wipe away.

Beauty, I - for one - rue the day
your beautiful body died.
I'm convinced you're still out there,
floating around looking for a body.
For if I unplug my vampiric friends
long enough I swear I catch glimpses of you.
Beauty, I tell it true -
though we may not know it yet,
we've never more desperately
wanted and needed you.

Justin Farley