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One Small Fracture, All It Takes to Destroy the Painting We Call Perfection.
She stands in an empty room, a wilting flower in her hand.
Her gaze fixed on a sterling painting.
A painting named Perfection.
A painting of unrivaled beauty, unexplainable grace.
She looks at it in awe, with incomparable reverence and unparalleled admiration.
She stands breathless, the beating of her heart a steady set of waves in the sea of silence.
If only she were a painting named Perfection.
Oh but the flower is quite beautiful too, is it not?
It once had faultless petals lined with bright strokes of color.
An ethereal ambience.
Now it says its goodbyes.
It has stood so long with the girl, waiting and waiting.
But it does not compare to the painting, to the quality that attracts the young girl.
No, it is just a flower. And it is time to wave farewell.
It must leave for she desires the perfection of the painting.
She does not see the price it costs, the price of her own character.
If only she were a painting named Perfection.
The flower has wilted.
In its place, a phantom of the once simple yet captivating flower that had lied in wait for far too long.
Her gaze? It stays fixed on the art, unmoving from what it desires.
It had not a crack, not one stroke out of place.
If only she were a painting named Perfection.
She sees the painting, sees its effortless radiance, its unwavering sublimity, its everlasting resplendence.
She sees perfection.
The girl thinks, if only I were a painting named Perfection.
She does not notice the flower fall through her fingertips.
The almost soundless thud as the flower and its petals joined the barren room.
She does not see the flower’s last goodbyes, nor does she feel her soul as a piece was ripped from its home.
Nor the walls as they warp and bend and close around her, just a breath away from hers.
If only she were a painting named Perfection.
She does not see the fracture.
The fracture that is not visible through the lens she stares ever so intensely through.
The fracture that has torn through the heart and soul of the painting.
The heart it stood so confidently on, the heart that worked tirelessly for perfection.
What a beautiful façade.
As her hand rests open, mourning its old friend, and her breath does not dare make a sound,
And the walls close in, suffocating her, holding on so, so tight.
Her gaze does not shift.
And she thinks, If only I were a painting named Perfection.
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I chose to write about the kind of pressure society places on teenage girls, or even adolescents in general, to be perfect because I feel it’s something I relate to. It’s very difficult to write poetry if it’s not coming from the heart and this kind of struggle to see yourself as enough is something I constantly find myself up against. I never described what she saw in the painting because someone’s idea of perfection, the desired version of themselves, is subjective. It varies for everyone and so the image of perfection the girl sees is left up to interpretation. I sort of imagined the painting to be a mirror instead, though the girl sees it as a painting because she does not recognize herself as the depiction of perfection. The metaphor I decided to use throughout my poem was a girl inside an empty room, representing her mind where the sole focus is on this desire of perfection, the painting. A painting never fits the standards of “perfect” because art relies so heavily on perceptions and variations, which is why I thought it would be perfect to illustrate the illusion of perfection. The flower originated from an idea I had where the main focus would be about the petals falling off until there was nothing left to critique but I decided to instead use it to show how the girl is unknowingly sacrificing her own character and uniqueness for the sake of perfection as society deems that the standard. And finally, the walls closing in is a metaphor for the illusion falling apart, but she still does not see this shift because the desire for perfection is so strong.