Five Easy Steps for Attaining Perfection

Disclaimer- not intended to be followed. In fact, please don't.

One. Don’t eat.

Don’t touch the food,

Don’t look at the food,

Don’t tempt yourself.

Don’t be the girl that tips the scale,

Be weightless. Then you’ll drift.

Then you’ll be a feather of a girl

And they’ll find you lying on a sidewalk

And they’ll glue you to a grade two project

And you’ll be skeletal and

Halfway to dead and

Perfect.

 

Two. Don’t speak.

Don’t open your mouth

Because every time you do

You make a mess.

Your words tumble out like tar

That drips from your lips and stains your blouse and your shoes

And they look at you with pity and say,

“If only she’d bit her tongue.”

So don’t speak. Not now, not ever,

Even this is too much,

Just shut up.

They say silence is fragile so you have to hold it

With both hands

Close to your heart

And don’t drop it, damn it,

Don’t let anyone touch it,

Keep it spotless,

Keep it perfect.

 

Three. Sit up.

Even if your collar bone sticks out,

Sit up. Smile.

No one likes a girl who is weighed down

By melodrama- ha!

They have their own problems

And no time for yours

So don’t be a bother.

Pretend you’re okay.

They’ll believe it.

They always do.

 

Four. Wear a mask.

Whether it is a mask of makeup

Or hair that never gets tied back

Or poetry on a page,

Never face them straight on

Because they might see something

They don’t want to see

And that will be the end.

Paint yourself the colour of the universe,

Press your cheek to the grass,

Hide.

Under layers and layers of earth, of cloth,

To keep warm and to soften your bones

And cover your eyes, cover your smile,

Cover yourself

Until there is not a hint of a girl in there.

Until then,

You’ll never be perfect.

 

Five. Give up.

They’ll always find you,

The imperfect body they call a girl,

The sack of blood and bones they

Tell you to love-

Love.

That word is foreign to you baby, I know.

How do they expect you to

Listen to them gripe about their

Misshapen bodies and merciless hair

And then turn to the mirror and not

See the image they alone have created for you?

Did they not expect this little girl

To grow up holding herself

And tiptoeing on the scale

And setting the ideal weight of zero

When they themselves taught her

How to loath the beautiful work of art

They tell her now she doesn’t have the eyes for?

There’s a soul in a rib cage

Beating against the bars and

Screaming to escape.

 

You came here looking for perfection.

And you’ll be happy to know,

Or maybe unhappy for that matter,

That perfection is an illusion.

It is a warped pane of glass

Through which we look at the world

Burned at the edges by the fire

            We set ourselves against,

            Impossible and

            Shattered.

 

So chin up, darling.

Don’t let their broken-eyed ideas

Convince you to ignore

Your own imperfect

Perfection.

Reviews

[Q.R. WoodLock]

I love it, in fact. Sounds like a description of the mindset of someone with an anorexic disorder. Though, some people could have those same feelings given the media of today. You've encompassed the whole of the part, and when people do that I can't help but enjoy the write, even though the subject is not always enjoyable. nicely done.