The ray of sunlight was like a steadfast beacon - a mothering, gleaming epidemic that unwaveringly supplied contagious radiance to any plant on which it shone. The rosy coral blossoms, which were unaware of their good fortune as they poised rooted in the sun’s spotlight, lay sleepily and contentedly in a bed of moss-green brush. All was peaceable in this forest. Bright blue bundles of beaks and feathers barreled themselves across the sky, weaving and spiraling through the leisurely current of springtime’s breath. Each dive was an abstract slash of paint across a heather canvas, each swoop a passionate stroke. The forest mimicked the work of a wise yet weary artist, all glides of the brushes' paint grainy with trepidation yet ablaze with unparalleled affection. An oakwood frame, with intricate patterns carved into its sturdy elegance, cradled every gleaming drop of sun as it unceasingly shed effulgence on all dimensions of the canvas. The scene was equal to that of Van Gogh in his prime – masterwork, indeed. Yet, there was something astray, something hidden in the corner of all sight – a creamy white flower, sweating dewdrops of guilty perspiration, of which fraudulent passerby could only perceive by trying not to. It was something veiled behind the dusty curtain of understanding for most, yet a roaring, bestial predator for those who were not the ordinary few. This was a paradox to the eye, and trickery to the mind; this was an imperfection. However, the poor artist, creator of the mystical woodland, tired of scrounging around at witching hour for profound ideas that never came, was the only singular person who could see it.

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I woke up from the dream in terror. The beryl sparrows beat their mockingly jubilant wings with every pulse of my despairing heart. The poor artist’s pangs of sorrow echoed in my mind as I writhed between my sheets and desperately entangled my gaunt, trembling, paling fingers into the dull white nothingness of my anguishing covers. I knew my bed sheets couldn’t help me, of course. Since when have comforters actually comforted poor little girls as they drifted off limitlessly into the dark, swelling abysses of  their minds? The venomous answer to this inquiry sunk its ravenous fangs into my helpless skin as echos of the torturous illusion clawed at my head. Why was the artist the only one who could point at the disastrous mistake in his painting? Why did nobody broach the calamity that lined each of his vivid strokes? Why was the artist alone in recognizing his status as a failure? Was I alone as well? As the darkest hour of night swooped in like a silent predator and muted the stars with its inevitable blanket of blackness, I let out a scream.
    

Screaming is an undervalued word. There is yelling, reserved for exasperated mothers and attention seekers in the crowd. There is screeching, of which belongs to the rasp, shrill vocal chords of vultures who have just pronounced themselves dictators of the skies. But screaming, screaming is the desperate moan that escapes the calloused lips of an artist who cannot explain his vicious calamity. Screaming is the sound of the stinging, unmerciful nails of time when the chalkboard is your brain, the bone-shuddering silence when the last flickering beat, the last warming promise of your heart is extinguished. Screaming is sharper than a shard of ice, unblinkingly ripping all connections of warmth and inspiration apart in your mind. And the night I woke up writhing between the sheets of blanketing ice on my bed was the night where all warmth was extinguished for good. The night I thought I broke inside was the night when I realized something that sent shudders slinking down my typically unflinching spine. That night, the night of so many desperate questions and clandestine answers was the evening I came to a revelation - throughout all the tidal waves of stress and emotion and all the rain of disappointment that inevitably poured down on my head throughout the miserable months of middle school, there was only one thing that I was truly afraid of. There was only one thing that could look into my eyes and send me tearing in the other direction, screaming in naught for mercy. There was only ever one person throughout all my weeks in middle school who could recognize misplacement in every move I made, step I took, note I played, and word I spoke; and that person was myself.
    

After the eve of the dream and the realization that tailed, it seemed as if my consciousness had bought its own balloon. Some days I would tramp through the stuffy, overcrowded school hallways aimlessly - sure of my destination, yet silently grateful for each distraction that presented itself. Lockers would slam, the careless CLANGs ricocheting off of each other in my mind like an unending, strangely muted swarm of frenzied hornets - muted by something even more gigantic, something growing and undulating with mounting power, ready to strike and constrict sovereignty from any given predecessor.
    

I carried on normally for most of my days. Whenever times got rough, I proceeded to put one foot in front of the other, and persuaded myself that each sharp intake of breath that grazed my pale lips deserved another strong, hearty exhale.  I was lucky, truly, that nothing too catastrophic occurred in the vast period of my ignorance.
    

Looking back on the scene, however, I was living like a paper cut-out doll; my body and every ounce of personality it contained were dwindling meagerly on the ledge of a window sill. Every Tuesday, my mind would slip from sanity, my heart from elation and hope. The clear, optimistic gaze that pertained to my normal self would be crashed down upon by tsunamis of exhaustion and endless stress that resulted from the amaranthine night that invariably came before. Nervous, yellowing eyes cloaked with a thick, miry gaze would take the place of cloudless blue ones, and allude to the insomnia that pulsed through my geranium veins. Eventually, my contorted parchment body became terrorized with every gust of nature’s exhalation that lavishly licked at the ashwood window pane. Eventually, my paper doll self began to crinkle like the flesh on an aging man’s face.
    

Out of it all, however, there was one thing that scared my cardboard self the most when it came to being blown off the window sill. It was not the vicious breeze of trauma, nor the all-consuming ocean of anxiety. It was the fact that in the acme of the deathless night, when the tidal waves were unstoppable at their most fragile and the weight of the world seemed to crash down in a furious sea around my arms, my terror would ever so slowly morph into hope.

In reflection, after an abundance of months being swallowed up in a whirlpool of my own anguish, I realize that sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the big picture. Sometimes you have to recognize the distinction between flaw and calamity, and recount to yourself why that distinction is so important. In the long run, the painter gets to determine the value of his art, not the paintings themselves. And although you are the only person who can recognize misplacement in every move you make, step you take, note you play, and word you speak, you are the only person in the whole of existence who, within all of those, can perceive absolute beauty.