Inside Out

All we paint with mental strokes becomes a self-portrait.
The grand murals on life's walls in us originate.

We are authors of our dreams when asleep and awake.
No one can live in our heads without our choice intake.

Through many observations we strengthen every trait.
The valued things reinforce and then accentuate.

What in others we reject in self we don't abate.
Emotion charged behavior our defenses equate.

We are held by all we love just like by all we hate.
What attracts and what repels will with self correlate.

Flame or ice runs in our veins and moodiness connate.
Mirrored images appear from what we inculcate.

What we see is in the mind and not outside the gate.
Perception is projection: a parallel comate.