August Poetry: Letting Go | The Odyssey Online
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Health Wellness

Learning To Be Free From Perfection- August Poetry

The perfect version of yourself is not worth competing with.

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Learning To Be Free From Perfection- August Poetry

The world is spinning when I take out my pen and write.

I am writing the longest story.

The world is spinning when I open my mind and think.

I am thinking the longest thought.

Eighteen years ago I was born and began absorbing the content of this world,

Like a book.

Eighteen years ago I was born and began living the wartime of this world,

Like a book.

I look back at who I used to be,

I see.

I look back at who I used to be,

I flee.

The world is changing and I know who I am,

It's Monday.

The world is steady and I don't know who I am,

It's Friday.

I have 365 days until my life-changing essays are due,

*blink

They are due.

I am late to the party,

I can't see anything, I know i'm tardy,

This road made a sudden curve, oh no! I'm so sorry,

I just hit a tree.

But more importantly?

Who in the world am I going to be?

I thought I knew. I thought I had life in the bags, by the reins, controlling every remote, with every string in my hand,

I was a fool.

I thought I knew. I thought I had my future as a doctor, but it turns out, that was just a monster, trying to lie, cheat, and shove her way past reality,

There is no string in my hand, no reins like Santa, and *crush!* no more remote control.

I was a fool.

It's 10:15 and I can't decide what color jacket I want to order from the Stanford Bookstore.

The problems I have are such a bore.

It's 10:16 and I chose white, seemingly innocent and nice.

I think I think that this jacket will give me security,

Like pressing pay and purchase will confirm that I am worth it to a school I think embodies me.

But can a school really embody me?

Can Stanford make me great?

No.

I make me great, and I would hate to waste my life waiting because,

Check mate,

I will lose.

We will always lose the battle with the invisible self because it does not exist in the realm in which we live.

I cry and fight and squeeze my knuckles in pain and fear of rejection.

What a way to waste a life.

The perfect "invisible self" has tools that I do not have, and and creates "what if" situations and changes the past while perfecting the future. I can not do that.

I do not want to compete with the "invisible self" anymore,

No, not because it's a bore,

But because it makes me sore.

I am tired, more tired than my ultra marathon races, because with marathon running I can win, but the battle with the "invisible self" I can not win.

Books, papers, scissors, rocks,

We are trying to make ourselves be what we are not.

I am confused.

For the first time, I am confused, and I don't feel steady,

But I think my mind is simply getting ready for a world of color and diversity,

A home at a university,

Where I can be myself.

Where I can sing and cry and plant green beans,

Where I can dance and laugh till falling on my knees.

Where everything is not what it seems,

And that is okay.

The mystery and charm comes from not knowing, but blindly jumping.

"Let me go" I say, but it is not to my brother or mother or friends of today,

It is to the "invisible me" that used to hold me.

"Let me go" I demand from the string of the past, let me go home,

And see,

All that I am capable to be.

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