Paralysed By Perfection

• Valentina Duong, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2014

I fell in love with a boy once.
He was perfection.
I didn’t realise how much I needed perfection
until the curve of my smile was replaced by the curve of my spine.

every bump a rolling hill;
so deep, you could frolic in it for days.
I felt your fingers slide down every vertebrae.
You have always had my back in the palm of your hands.
I didn’t know, I should have known
that hands let you hold on to things but spines hold you up.

If broken, the spine is the one part of your body that can paralyse you.
I didn’t realise how much I needed perfection
until you stood up and walked away, and I lay
on the ground; paralysed.