Tell Me A Story

Perfection is praise, praise is attention, attention is love, companionship, security.



These last three states of being, the most important and desired, are nothing more than concepts; existing, in differing forms, differing names, to each of you. Defined? I cannot make you a list of what it means to be loved, to have a complement, to be safe. There is no way to elaborate these basic needs, my intrinsic foundations, these jig-saw components locking together to form my whole.



How am I to balance this equation, obtain my end result, when the result does not exist in any direct form? It is attempting to solve for an answer, without having any idea what kind of problem you are up against. As if you check out a book, only to realize that all that is left is the final chapter. A final chapter, leaving you to wonder where it all began: prologue, chapter unfolding unto chapter, epilogue. You can wave your hands about, haphazardly creating these internals, mixing and matching to your hearts content, if it allows you to find peace within yourself. But unless you have previously read the book, your draft will never be identical to the original. You will never succeed at reaching the author's original intent, plot, nuances. You may never be entirely in the wrong, but you will most certainly never be right.



You do know, though, that I've read this book at least once before.

You do know, though, that those are not just words inked on parchment.

You do know, though, that I have been derived from somewhere between the front and back covers, pushed flush against the grainy, cracked spine, dancing between the quotations.



Having read this book, I know where to begin. I know what equation I'm facing. I know my starred "You-Are-Here" beginning. The words roll out of my mind, from my mouth, swimming between my fingertips and my notebook. Before chapter one, before the prologue, the book is dedicated to a jumping-off point. Perfection. Something concrete. Something that I can wrap my mind around. Something that is finite and definitive.



As intangible and elusive as it simultaneously may be, perfection can still be "achieved" through a set of to-do's; nothing more than a ladder, rung upon rung, of tasks to complete to reach an end goal. You have convinced me, I have allowed myself, to believe that perfection is the necessary catalyst for this equation. That nothing will be balanced without it. That I will be done living before I possess your love, companionship, your security. You have made this formula irreversible:



Security, companionship, love will never lead to attention, attention will not ever lead to praise, and you will never find praise directing you toward perfection.



I have allowed you to brand me with the idea that I cannot be loved if I am imperfect. And now I'm left with the challenge of establishing a new science, a way to reverse the irreversible. A way to make the reactants products, and products reactants. Do you understand how incapacitating this is, how difficult?



I was not born to be obedient. I was not born to be seen and not heard, not born to be judged on the size of my pants or the softness of my body, not born to be your keeper.



I was not, am not, will never be, born for you.



I am re-writing my book, though I've yet to get much further than my prologue. I've yet to place my finger on a way to reverse my situation and make it logical. As if I wish to present to the world something that makes sense, something that I can defend, a story with continuity. This, I'm sure, will come in time.



And when it does? When it makes its grand entrance, edited and bound, published and distributed, you will never find yourself listed in the acknowledgements. Search among the footnotes, the index, the italics. Please, spend your life searching for yourself among me, become lost in a re-issued, I-stand-corrected, number-one-best-selling version of myself. You deserve it. Become as obsessed with that quest as you have been with feeding me lies. It's a fruitless journey, because I will never honorably mention you, quote you, underline you.



Your name will never disgrace my pages again.