Those who live in vanity and a craving for beauty
Miss life's beauty, nature's beauty and
The simplicity of being happy.
They catch a glimpse of themselves with quick glances and motions.
The lustful for eternal beauty perceive themselves as the epitome of "the fairest one of all."
Many of them looked down upon others with devotion
To art, philosophy, and knowledge.
They believe in a new way of thinking;
They are not held hostage.
Those who only seek beatuty and are vain
Are punished deep below the oceans.
They spend their days with leprosy and pain.
Looking at their refections in broken
Mirrors they cry to all that is holy
To end their suffering.
Their woeful cries never to be heard
By He who is holy and mighty.
Their tears seen, their despair listened to.
All ignored, they are outcasts of society.
Their vanity isolated them from human interaction.
Among them, Cleopatra whose beauty betrayed her
When she betrayed her people for a lover.
Mike the Situation, whose vanity made him irritating;
Causing him to lose a battle of dance.
Kanye West with his prose and loss
Of reality, informs other lost souls to
Take refuge in his grotesque "good looks."
My guide, Perez Hilton pulls me away.
He explains the people of this underworld
Are meant to suffer and to be left where
No one can see them, hear them.
They are to suffer in never ending pain.
Only meant to agonize over the
Cycle for eternity.
Where their pain is cured, and then
Progresses back to Leprosy each and every day.
Explanation:
My canto is in the second level of hell where the lustful and the vain live. The people must live with the agonizing pain of having Leprosy. Which is then cured, but progresses back to the illness when a new day begins. I chose Leprosy because it is a disease that causes people to lose fingers and toes, become blind, and stay in a state of health where they are constantly weak. Causing these people to become the outcasts they once detested. The vain must also stay stationed in front of a mirror to watch the disease vanish and come back again. They cry for God to help them, but He can't hear them due to the fact that everyone has to ignore them and because they're below the ocean. Their vanity caused them to dismiss everything that is actually beautiful in the world, which is ironic because being so in love with beauty and attaining it, they miss seeing true beauty. I have certain celebrities and historical figures in the canto because they are prime examples of people who are seen as beautiful, but are actually ugly because they don't look beyond being "good looking." My guide is Perez Hilton, because although he irritates me, I look up to him for the fact that he tells the truth and reveals the imperfections and mistakes of celebrities and well known figures.
