The Perfection in the Puzzle

Dear you,

I will fold a towel four times to make sure it is perfect

I use a new sheet of paper when the old one has a stray mark that I cannot erase

I stay up until 3 in the morning doing extra credit when I have a 104 in the class

I'm told I am a perfectionist

But isn't this simply industrious

I have to fold the towels to the best of my ability

I can't turn in a paper that just looks like instability

I cannot get a grade lower than the highest possibility

Because then I am cheating myself

And cheating everyone else

 By never showing them all of me 

Because I am more than all the broken pieces you choose to see

You can't make me into a masterpiece

You can't break me apart and put me back together expecting to find beauty

That was never there in the first place

My scars are not stray marks that you can try to erase

There were battles that I had to face

All by myself all alone

I can do this on my own

But I let you in

Not to break me apart and put me back together again

But to hold me where I am 

To look at the big picture and finally understand

That the reason I cling tightly to the perfection in my hand

Is because I'm afraid of letting go

Releasing it into an ugly world that I've always had to know