I am supposed to be perfect.
Perfectly perfect and perfect in all senses that the word perfect can be interpreted. I am supposed to have the perfect hair, perfect name, perfect grades, perfect friends, perfect family.
But all of this perfection is degrading and I am nowhere near these high expectations.
My mother lives in a delusion, she thinks herself—and her family—to be perfectly perfect. But she is only perfect at being perfectly not perfect.
My father, the only piece of him that is perfection is that he always manages to be the perfect stereotypical drunk—drowning his self-loathing and infidelity in his flask.
My brother, perfectly addicted to drugs, and perfectly projecting that perfect image of perfect self destruction.
I am nobody. Nobody at all. Perfect at hiding the pain that my perfectly perfect family inflicts on me.
Perfectly precise steps are what I have to take when I walk on the shards of perfectly broken glass that are littered around perfect little me from the perfection that is my family.
In our kitchen my perfect father is currently yelling at my perfect mother about how perfectly terrible she is.
The sound is only shredding what innocence I had left after listening in perfect horror to the noises he was making when my perfect mother wasn't in our perfect home. The responses from another female voice were the final, perfect, blow to what little
perfection I could believe in.
The sound of perfect flesh hitting perfect flesh and perfect bone resonates within the walls of our perfect home. The sobbing that follows is the only indication to the perfection of what just occurred between my perfect parents.
Soon, there is the perfect sound of the front door slamming, then perfect silence.
My perfect legs carry me down our stairs to see my perfect mother lying in perfect disarray, her perfect crimson blood dripping onto our perfect hardwood floors.
My voice, in the perfect pitch, asks my mother one perfect question.
“Why?”
The perfect whisper slices through the perfect silence.
My perfect mother blinks and draws in a perfect breath before answering me.
“Why what?”
She ignores everything that is perfectly wrong and dismisses my perfect point.
I don't speak again. Knowing that any hint of perfection has leaked from what could have been a perfect family.
I slowly limp up the imperfect stairs, imperfectly stained with imperfect fallen dreams, imperfect blood, and imperfect infidelity. I return to my imperfect room and grab the imperfect duffel bag that I have kept in my closet for months now—perfectly hidden from prying eyes.
The back door is unlocked and it is with imperfection that I slip away from the little imperfect house and my imperfect family.