Perfect

In a perfect world I would never have been born.

My maternal grandmother would never have been raped by her ex-husband and thus wouldn’t have fallen pregnant with her eleventh child: My mother. The girl would have grown up having girl-friends and would have been looked after by her older brothers and sisters. They would have warned her about the red flags that her highschool sweetheart was waving on full display: how he would say that he’d pick her up for a date and instead would blow her off to go drinking with his friends; how he was possessive and jealous whenever she was out of the house or out of his sight; how he bragged that he dated the girl with the best ass on the track team.

My paternal grandfather wouldn’t have shamed his sons away from the arts or from expressing their feelings in a healthy way: Like my father. He would have been able to be a model, feeling confident and making money instead of staying out doing “manly” things his father wanted like street racing, chain smoking, and day drinking. He would have finished highschool, maybe even gone to a trade school to get a good-paying job to be a family provider like he wanted.

They would have used contraception to prevent the birth of children they couldn’t afford, or gotten abortions if their measures failed. They would have saved their money to invest in stable things like a home, a good family car, and necessary medical work. My father would have gotten sober and lived long enough to see his children lead adult lives.

But the world is not perfect. And so I exist.

“She’s perfect.” Those were the first words my mother said to me when I was born.

But that has never been true.

The perfect child would be quiet, keep her toys tidy, and listen to her parents. She would play by herself. She wouldn’t be sad or needy, she’d be grateful for what she had and would come to understand that it was shameful to have desire while admirable to have ambition. Like her family, she’d be strong and never show her suffering. She could be anything she wanted as long as she remained thin.

I couldn’t be perfect. If I was perfect, my face would be symmetrical with regular-sized teeth that were always straight and pearly white. My hair would never be frizzy and would always be luminous. I wouldn’t have been so desperate for the love and affection that I didn’t feel at home that I sought it from all the wrong people.

He said a good girlfriend listened to him when he talked about hunting and knives and a/c units and bondage. A good girlfriend didn’t talk back. He said it wasn't fair for him to be left hanging after I said “no.” He said it was just for me to be punished with his pleasure, my pain.

I wanted to be good, but if I was good I wouldn’t feel a crushing darkness when all the lights are on, pushing me down into the depths of despair. Perfection faded into gray.

Someone else told me that he cared for me, that it wasn’t bad his friends snickered when he said it. He said it wasn’t bad that he left me for her, that I just wasn’t enough. Maybe it was bad that it hurt, that I didn’t understand. My mother said it wasn’t bad that she was leaving, instead, she was happy to have a new husband. My father said it wasn’t bad for him to drink away his sorrows.

I didn’t want to be bad, or to feel bad. I never lied and I worked hard, I skipped class and I snuck out late. Nothing changed and I called out for no one. Moments of quiet invited the urge to ruminate over the unsolvable and the impossible.

Another man told me that I could be perfect if I only listened to him, never questioning or wondering for myself. Perfect like he was, a level of ignorant bliss that perfectly balanced a hatred of things that were different - things that were imperfect. I smothered myself to shrink, to be small and light, compacting the burdens of my shameful needs.

Perfection became the color of red hot rage. It softened like velvet sheets around white gold plated bones and left gentle bruises. My knuckles strained to keep hold.

I told him he would be perfect if he was different, if he would be more attentive, more loyal, more giving, more everything. Perfection was impossible, unattainable. And he told me that he was just fine the way he was. That I was not only imperfect, flawed, but I was wrong.

Perfect became like a still clearing in a snowy wood. Beautiful like bright stars in eternal depths of black and nothingness. Crystalline glass without flaw, cold and alone. Every failure, every shortcoming, every mistake, they hid in the trees and the shadows to stay away from the stark light of perfection’s eternal watch.

I was okay on my own.

In a perfect world, the sign on my back that listed my faults could be obscured by the darkness. I jumped at every shifting shadow in fear of what they could become; where they might lash out and dig into me, tearing tainted blood from my imperfect flesh.

I fell ill. My body trapped me yet she freed me without bail, she unlocked the gates. She promised that her love wasn’t contingent on my perfection. She told me I was welcome, that I was wanted. She forgave me and smiled with her perfect teeth. She told me it was okay. She kept her promise.

She was perfect. I was not okay, anymore. Maybe I never had been.

If I was worth her love, then I had to be perfect. I had to look straight and neat, I had to listen and keep quiet, I could never need. To be okay, my best couldn’t falter. Every unsure step came wobbly through the snow and shade was slower and harder. Without failure I marched in a circle and searched for the exit, uneven, imperfect footfalls trudging onward to nothing and nowhere.

When I called out for help, an admission of fault and failure, a recitation of my sins and errors, she listened. In a perfect world the silence would have stretched on endlessly, as no one would have been around to hear it.

Perfection felt like a bramble of thorns. Each motion, every thought, pricked and poked.

Her hand stretched out to me, though I trembled as I took it. I followed her forward, up, and out, from the brambles and ice up the side of a mountain made of fear and uncertainty. And at the peak, when I looked back, I saw that where I’d found myself was just okay. Sometimes, it was even good.

The cold, sharp, perfect world shattered in beautiful pieces and sank into the abyss. I watched, unblinking, standing firm where I perched, anchored and rooted, unmoved.

I was born in an imperfect world. I was scared, I was hurt and angry, and I was alone. But imperfection grows stronger. And so, I exist.