Credit: unknown artist.

You received a gift of canvas and paint
a masterpiece yet to be created
a promise for the future
that might reflect on you well

But, no:
You used the canvas for target practice
You marred its pristine surface with hideous holes and ghastly rents
like a spoiled child who didn’t get the gift they wanted
destroying the one they did

and the paints, dried in their tubes made useless
laid to waste in a dark corner
kicked away and forgotten

You told sad tales about your blamelessness
You scoffed at the cheapness of quality
Useless to you, fit only for the trash
You hated the way that ugly thing sat in its lonely corner
mirroring back your own ugliness
and mocking you with obscenities
that you wrote on it with your own feces
A gift turned curse
but it never had to be that way

You concocted lies that even you believed
to make yourself feel better
and never be held accountable

But what you don’t know
is that you sabotaged yourself;
with every act of destruction
you destroy yourself.