Fred Aiken Writing

i learned from the portrait of dorian gray that it’s best
not to let a mediocre artists paint a portrait of you,
nor let mediocre personalities (including yourself) adore you,
only to be wrapped up in your own ego
to the point where youth and time mean nothing, 
when the superficialities strip away, 
leaving bare
what was never there

though also to that point, 
i wonder what the story of dorian gray would have been like
if rather than a beautiful painting of his youth he kept hidden away,
it was a cartoon caricature?