Eclipse Imperfections | Teen Ink

Eclipse Imperfections

June 4, 2021
By KellyLau PLATINUM, Burnaby, Columbia
KellyLau PLATINUM, Burnaby, Columbia
21 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Life is just an endless series of endings and beginnings.

Life begins.

Life ends.

An endless cycle, 

spinning 

like the laundry in the washing machine


An endless cycle. 

The dutiful sun rises and sets. 

A glowing light stretched over the horizon 

like a tightrope.

I wonder what would happen if somebody got a pair of scissors and went 

snip snip.

Would the only constant be the unworthy moon cratered in imperfections?

snip snip.


Life begins.

The wailing of a child as the umbilical cord is cut.

The connection to the mother.

The lifeline of nourishment and care,

snip snip. 

 

Sometimes I feel as if I was born water. 

I am slipping through my own fingers, 

unable to grasp who I am, 

molding to your expectations.

Every day I become a watered-down version of myself. 

Cutting away the me,

snip snip.


My mind cuts me down to make me smaller

like the way I wished my body looked in the mirror

Do you ever pinch skin between your fingers and wish you could just 

snip snip 

it all away?

Like all the other things you hate,

to count my insecurities would take the same amount 

of nights for you to cut from the sky

all the stars and city lights. 

snip snip.


Curve and edges.

Distorted and blurred.

When I look in the mirror 

I think the only beautiful thing about me is my words.

 

I realize that words are like scissors. 

Cut away the beauty or 

Cut away the ugly. 

It just depends on the wielder 


Words are like scissors.

“You can’t be perfect,” they say.

“You can’t be perfect”

I know.

I

can’t.

They say that perfection is unattainable but 

we are designed to want what we cannot have

like the moon spending each day chasing the sun across the sky 


They told me to shoot for the moon and then be content landing in the stars.

but stars are big balls of gas.

You will die if you land on them.

Maybe that is the point of this whole life mission 

to burn out.

But to be honest, I just want to land on the moon

to be honest

I just want to float on something else cratered with imperfections


snip snip.

Words are like scissors

Cutting through my thoughts as I am staring at the cycle of the ceiling fan as it swirls,

thoughts swirling in my own head

of all the things I wish I said


Sometimes I hear people talking like a distant dream.

One will come up and say, “how is your day”

and I will feel my body contracting, 

“good” I say.

What I want to say is that I am not alright, that I 

feel as if I am drowning.

The cycle churning bubbles 

exploding from my mouth as I try to scream,

I feel hollow 

like an empty prescription bottle

and my words feel like pills that I can not swallow.

 

I can feel them getting lodged in my throat

like the piece of apple from the garden of Adam and Eve. 

Sinful yet I am tempted but cutting through the 

Snip snip 

“Good” I repeat instead “really good.” 

Stuck in an endless cycle. 


Chasing the idea of a perfect sun

with people who would have rather had a perfect son

but I am like the moon. 

A glowing symbol of imperfection,

rarely ever living up to my full potential


So I am stuck in a cycle. 

Words are me grasping onto reasons to live.

Choking them out to fill the air at the dinner table 

with tension so thick you can 

snip snip.

 

I am like a magician conjuring up reasons, 

creating towers made of ice on a bed of matches,

burning holes of excuses

Rubbing against the metal blade of scissors


Words are like scissors 

and I have read that when you have no reason to stay it is a good reason to go. 

EndIings, cutting your life line away, 

snip snip.

Ending the endless cycle


You know

They told me to reach for the moon and then be content landing in the stars

the moon has no gravity, 

the building lights kind of look like stars

and if I squint hard enough the sidewalk is cratered with imperfections.


The author's comments:

This piece is intended to be read in multiple different ways. You can read the end as the person going to commit suicide or as them coming to peace with the knowledge that everyone is imperfect. Regardless, I hope that you can read over the words that have come from the darkest crevices of my mind and the forbidden parts of my heart and that this speaks to you.


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This article has 2 comments.


on Jun. 28 2021 at 9:09 pm
SparrowSun ELITE, X, Vermont
200 articles 23 photos 1053 comments

Favorite Quote:
"It Will Be Good." (complicated semi-spiritual emotional story.)

"Upon his bench the pieces lay
As if an artwork on display
Of gears and hands
And wire-thin bands
That glisten in dim candle play." -Janice T., Clockwork[love that poem, dont know why, im not steampunk]

oh my goodness this feels like i clicked on a mag poem.
btw- when it gets mag I called it.
its so beautiful.

Lydiaq ELITE said...
on Jun. 28 2021 at 4:47 pm
Lydiaq ELITE, Somonauk, Illinois
172 articles 54 photos 1026 comments

Favorite Quote:
The universe must be a teenage girl. So much darkness, so many stars.
--me

You have a real deep and mature voice, it just echos and reechos. It is the voice of time and space and lost dreams that echos forever, so resounding it is the cry of all of us, and you just keep going and going, not caring what people think of what's in your heart.