The Perfectionist

I sometimes feel like this is my fault. Not all the time, just sometimes. When I do, I choke up a little. Very little; such a small bit that it’s completely unnoticeable. My cheeks tingle, and I wonder why things turned out this way. I think these things, while carving your name into my mind and screaming how much I hate you. Tears start flowing, and it only angers me more. My own weakness is pathetic.

I become furious; the art on my arm doesn’t look pretty. I rip up the skin as if scratching it out, and start over elsewhere on my body.

But these thoughts feel like they’re true; they don’t just feel like I’m being a self-indulged kid who thinks that everything that happens links back to her somehow. If I hadn’t done this, if only I had done that; it all adds up to the same thing.

My fault; I shriek it at the top of my lungs and slam my bloodied hands onto the stone floor, screaming and crying at my wounds

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It’s always like this. It always has been. I try and try over and over to fix everyone just right so that my life can be ideal, but no one ever listens to me. No one understands that I’m right and they’re wrong. They don’t understand that they are defective products. Defects that can be fixed with a little tweaking.

Why aren’t you listening to me!? I start to thrash about wildly, slamming myself into the walls and floor of the small room; I am trapped within myself.

I like to think that I’m responsible for everyone’s well-being, and that if I wasn’t here, they’d all die. It makes me feel like I matter in the world; like it would matter if I disappeared. It’s one of the only things that keeps me from slashing too deep.

You’re still not listening! Pay attention carefully. Watch me. Copy what I do. If you paid attention to my perfection, you’d be almost perfect by now!

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But, in the end, I always come to realize that I’m not really that important. That, if I died, the world would keep on spinning. I try to convince myself otherwise, but it doesn’t ever change the facts. That is when I want to hurt myself; to make sure that it’s real. If it wasn’t real, and I was living like this, trying to be perfect, trying to be the best and ignoring my fears, then all my hard work would be worth nothing.

I am important! You listen to me, I am your ruler. You can’t ignore me, I am the most significant! I shriek and scream at the world that ignores me, tearing up as I realize how invisible I am.

I sometimes worry that I’ll do something wrong. I worry that everything I’ve worked for will undo itself. I’ve worked as hard as I can to get to this point, but what if it wasn’t worth it? What if it all goes to waste? What if the world is as unfair to me as it’s been to the rest of my friends and family? What if I lose everything?

I won’t lose! You’ll see! I’ll become the perfect that you fools could never hope to achieve! I’ll win! I’ll survive! You will all die and I will succeed! I’m better than you; I’m better than everyone!

Ah yes, dreams.