I am Ana. Some call me beautiful. Some call me terrifying. On the contrary, I tend to
believe that I am a mystery. I suppose I can be beautiful, terrifying mystery, but if I had the choice
all I want to be is perfect. Maybe that is my demon; my drive to be perfect. But that is just too easy,
too superficial. I know I am so much more than a shallow girl who wants to be perfect. I am so
much deeper, so much more complex.



She was perfect. And she wasn’t real. But to me she was real, more real than the person
standing next to me. I was only in 3rd grade, reading a magazine trying to find the newest style so I
could look precisely how everyone else wanted to look. I turned the page and on that page I found
exactly what I was looking for. She was on the ad for the company Mareth. Today if you ask me
what Mareth sells or what the ad said the only answer I have is perfection. I stared at that page in
complete awe. The women on the page in front of me was the spitting image of I know perfect is.
And from that day on I had found my hero. My only goal in life was to become the
living-breathing version of the woman in that ad.



At the age of 8 on May 9th I knew what I wanted to become. I have a vision inside of my
head of what everything will be like when I am finally perfect. I see it constantly, it holds a
permanent spot in my life. It tortures me everyday before I fall asleep. I see myself standing there
with my friends. It doesn’t matter who they are but I know that they are people who care about me.
I know that they are people that I can trust and they understand me. But that isn’t all. I’ve only ever
seen myself from the back in my vision but I can only imagine how I look. I believe that I am pale
and deathly beautiful. The very best part of my future is I can see someone who loves me.
Someone who smiles at me and when they do I can see that they truly love me. They love me for
who I am, what I was, and what I’ve done to be me.



I do suppose that I am too young to be perfect and much, much too young to know my
demons. I’ve always been a tad ambitious for my age and this is all I’ve ever wanted to know. I
believe that knowing what makes me weak, what tears me apart inside, that is what will make me
perfect. Because when I know these things I can cut them away. Shave myself down to only
perfection.


Fifteen years old can be seen as young and immature, even naive. But I say that it depends
on your experiences not how many years you have been here. Some people see things - inside their
own tortured souls and in the cruel outside world - that forces so much pain upon them. You can
see the pain that they feel when you look deep into their eyes. There is so much unspoken
suffering that needs to be let out and never has been. It is stuck inside some beautiful human being
and the pain inside of them slowly tears them apart.


Everyone has a problem. Maybe some have more. But no matter how many, no one ever
likes to admit them. But someday you’re going to have to. Because those inner demons are coming
out, and they are going to be walking among us. The biggest challenge we are given in this life is
finding them and facing them. Facing them in reality because they are our realities, no matter how
cruel they can be.


Everywhere I go things are taunting me. The people at school quietly giggle behind me and
everyone who I walk past on the street whips around to stare. No matter where I go it’s impossible
to escape the disapproving and disgusted looks after seeing me. The worst part about all of this is I
absolutely hate attention. It makes me feel so unsure and isolated. As I see it there is no good
reason in this world to give out special attention. Giving one person more attention doesn’t make
them any more of a person it just makes everyone else less. I firmly believe that attention is only
given to those who do something wrong. So therefore when someone looks at me for awhile all I
hear is Ana’s voice telling me what is wrong.

“ You are the reason that went wrong, the reason she is crying.”
“ You relish being in this imperfection. You can’t change.”
“You are just plain worthless.”

Over and over until the voices all mesh into one. Mine. And that’s all I hear.
From sunrise to sunset.

“ No one could ever love a girl like you.A girl with scars on her body and mind.”


I can never let go of this thought. It constantly taunts me with the power it hold over me. I
believe because I am a slave to my own mind no one I meet can find the real me to love me. I
never have been the girl that boys fight over, the one who every boy wants. I think there is
something wrong with me, the way I never hold a boy’s attention for more than a couple of days. I
wish I knew what I am lacking besides perfection. Everywhere I go things are falling into place
for perfect relationships. I stand completely silent and alone waiting for someone to care about me.
I may be searching for perfection but a tiny part of me is simply devoted to finding someone. I
know that there is no way someone will love me unconditionally in real life. Things like true love
don’t happen to girls like me, the ones who aren’t perfect anymore.



It isn’t like I haven’t tried other things to be perfect before. I’ve wanted it my whole entire
life. I want to be the girl who isn’t just normal but the one who completely encompasses and is the
living, breathing definition of perfect. People have told me a million times before that I was perfect
once. I wish I knew what changed. They say that you are perfect when you are young, perfect as a
newborn. I say back to them that some of those people are still perfect. Some others have no
chance of returning to their perfection and then there are people like me who are still searching and
struggling to return to what they once were.


I know I’m not perfect. I’m not always kind, loving, responsible, empathetic to the ones I
love but despite all of this I want to help. There is something, some piece of me that isn’t broken.
This piece remains untouched by my tainted soul. And this part of me, it sees the pain and
suffering of the world. I need to help those who can’t help themselves.I can’t tell you why because
I don’t even understand it myself. I need to save the wondering in their eyes, the happiness in their
smiles, and I need to save their light. If you ask about me
some may say that I am one of those people who needs saving. They will say that I have
sunk too deep into my search and struggle for perfection. But that is not me. I can’t be one of
them. I’m the beautiful girl who never sinks.This is how the world will always see me but never
how I will see myself.



I never sink because I know that this life is not mine. I know that I was put here, on this
earth to be perfect, to help, and to save them. With this knowledge it is like a light for me. I know
it’s always there, guiding me to my destiny. I know that when I trust and believe in this that I am
safe. But in the darkness I often begin to doubt. I doubt that I ever will achieve my perfection
before I am snatched away from this piece of hell.



In the darkness, perfection mocks me. I see the faces of perfection that were inside of my
mind come out and dance around me. They waltz around my room in the darkness, sometimes they
are loud, making the room ring with satirizing laughter, then other times they are dark and silently
screaming with pain. They mock me, destroying the worldly things that I love. My inner desires
come out of me. They bring back painful memories that tore my life apart. These demons that
were within me know how to hurt me. They understand the corners of my mind that I don’t even
know about.


The nights are getting longer. Nothing is easy to do anymore. I know that day will always
come, the time to fake happiness always roll back around. Each time the darkness comes I dread it
because I know that the demons get stronger in the night. I never get stronger, I continually get
weaker day by day. My life is a twisted web of lies. It’s weighing me down and they trap me. I
can’t struggle and fight Ana for much longer. I created my own coffin built out of the lies I told. I
am going to die but I am going to do it surrounded by those who know me best. I will die
surrounded by my demons, our screams will be silenced forever. When I die I will finally be perfect, I will release all my imperfections with my final breath.