the perfection

By Alisha Wong

even before the first insult was hurled at her,

her posture stiffened on display, and her loveliness

made the roses bloom in her presence. ‘she’s insane,’

everyone would whisper, and of course they would.

I thought no one would dare speak treacherously of the girl

who could paint each stroke of a canvas

like a mother desperately praying for her

newborn child to be a prodigy.

I wondered who could throw a dirty glance at

the girl whose fouettés were gilded by years of practice,

and who spent every dying second twirling into unconsciousness.

no one could, until,

in the frigid winter breeze, mouths divulged comments.

she sprinted home that day,

demanding herself to vomit out her jutting cheeks,

and scrape her fingers against the piano keys

until her thin hands numbed.

I saw her the next day

on the train. a cigarette was anchored to her milky teeth,

but she was still too lovely, too beautiful,

and her fouettés were even more becoming

than the last time I saw her dance.

red seeped through her ballet slippers

as her tutu orbited her frame.

her protruding collar bone melted under the spotlight,

but, amid all the glory,

she continued twirling and twirling and twirling and:

thud. thud. thump.

it was an unbelievable, undignified, unladylike collision,

and it uncloaked her humanity. she slowly trembled upward,

breathing in a look at the crowd, and bowed a

stark, crooked, final bow. the audience applauded,

as vermilion splatters trailed behind her like rose petals.

the next morning,

they said her maimed foot was the cause,

but they never mentioned how the ripples crashed over her

with the stars beckoning and her hands clutched

on top of her swollen ribs; a doll beneath a glazed sky.

I thought she must have been too good for this world,

too lovely, too beautiful.

when I was in her place at last, I pinched my toes even tighter,

forced a delightful smile, and spiraled into my most exquisite fouetté.

she was lovely and beautiful, and I was not.

she must have drowned the pressure

behind her fouettés

while I was aching to share her legacy,

too late to realize how we could forgive ourselves

for being only almost perfect.

---

My inspiration was perfectionism and how it could be a bad attribute to have. I have my fair share of perfectionistic tendencies that fester into anxiety. I wrote this piece in a time in my life where I just felt like I needed to be better–more talented, more pretty, more intelligent. This was a personal poem that was kind of a warning to myself that I didn’t need to be perfect, nor should I try to be. I felt like both girls in my poem were two different parts of myself: one being perfect, but struggling to keep up with expectations, and the other wishing to be perfect and envying what she believed was the definition of perfection.

Photo by Hudson Hintze