if the vanity itself doesn’t prevail;
the teenager that thinks being
looked at is being seen, who makes
secret attention mean regard;
the man who values looks over
smarts and personality, who does no
such thing with anyone outside of
himself.

All this, and yet I’m overweight;
my vanity is bigger than that, more
unwieldy that this beer gut, more
permanent and unhealthy.

Or!

Or maybe I just let vanity win

and be happy that it doesn’t hinge on
anything but my own bulbous sense
of how I appear.
Let me live the festive life!
Hate my innards;
hang trinkets on my outsides.

---

Ewen Glass (he/him) is a screenwriter and poet from Northern Ireland who lives with two dogs, a tortoise and a body of self-doubt; his poetry has appeared in the likes of Okay Donkey, Maudlin House, HAD, Poetry Scotland and One Art. Bluesky/IG: @ewenglass