shame

She looked at herself
not to see who she was,
but who she thought she should be.
She looked at herself
and found that she was
not what she wanted.
So she packed herself away
in a musty box and
painted the outside with a rosy glow.
People told her she was beautiful;
you're talented, smart, and wonderful! They'd claim.
But she didn't believe it
because she knew all they saw
was the paint on the box
and they didn't know
that the box was her well-disguised shame.