I Am Not Perfect And I Don’t Really Want To Be

I am so much more than you may notice. Maybe because you never tried to notice or maybe, or more naturally because it’s not in your nature to notice the little things that form the bigger painting.

But it’s ok, I don’t blame you. I’m not mad at a world that was bred this way. You don’t have to notice. But don’t claim that you know me because you truly don’t.

You know me as an image. Still. Without a backstory and without a purpose.

But I’m not just an image because that image only represents a handshake, a passing “Hello.” Or maybe you’ve bumped into this image on the way to work. Maybe all you know about that image is what you’ve been told, or maybe you just look and you know nothing at all.

But I’m not an image because that still frame can barely capture the essence of a whole life.

You see that bump on my right middle finger; it’s because of the weird way I hold my paint brushes. You see the three stray hairs on my eyebrow; I love these 3 hairs more than I care to trim them. I like my face that way.

The way I laugh may be loud or inappropriate but it’s freeing. I stay up nights and sleep all morning because I’m inspired by the moon and the quite. I have a peculiar taste in music but the music I listen to can move me in ways that I’ve never known I could. I’m drawn to the ocean; I feel the salt coursing through me when nothing else can. I live in my self-created chaos like a spider lives in its web; only the spider knows and understands it.

And I’ll always have an itch for more. More than I know and more than I have, for it’s the only way I can grow and if I’m not growing, I can’t sit still.

This is who I am; it keeps me from the generic parade of perfectionism that I fear I may dissolve into. I don’t want to go by unnoticed.

I want to have imperfections and scars. I want to have imbalances and complexities. I want to be ridiculed for something because if I’m praised for everything I do I wouldn’t feel human.

I want to make mistakes and feel embarrassed and blush when I talk to a guy I like. I don’t want to be in total control of my life because I’m not a train that stays on its designated tracks and I never was meant to be. I want to falter and buckle and fall face first into the snow.

I want to break and reshape and I want to feel the pieces that barely fit together. I’m not a store bought puzzle. I’m human.

Without the flaws I’d be like the rest of them—mass produced to fit the standard, left on a shelf with an expiration date for my hopes and ambitions. I’d die, but not like the rest would. I’d die because I wouldn’t be able to breathe. Because I wouldn’t be able to find myself because I would know that this obviousness is not my truth.

But just like that, I would have nothing other than the obvious to explore and that frightens the skin off my bones because I see everyone worshipping the generic like it is extraterrestrial and it baffles me. So if I end up worshipping the same gods you loom over I would not see my tragedy because I would be it.

That’s how it is with most people; they don’t see their misfortune because they are their own misfortune.

You crave perfection like it’s your sacred savior but it won’t save nor help a being that frames their life up to be hung upon a wall.

I don’t belong in an expensive Italian frame and I most certainly don’t belong on a wall. I belong on the other side—the living, breathing side. The side with all the beautiful imperfections. The side that was never meant to be perfect. And I’m happy here.