Tally Marks

August 15, 2018

The last time I wrote an essay,

I spent three hours staring at the fourth sentence because something was wrong.

I did not sleep that night,

Because even when I closed my computer,

My mind was swirling with what’s wrong with it?

Twenty minutes before it was due,

I deleted it all because it wasn’t quite right\

Turning that 20-minute essay in was physically painful,

And that night I added another tally mark to the sticky note on my door.

When I got my PSAT score back during freshman year,

I had to dig my nails into my skin to keep from ranting at myself about how I failed,

Because 1340 was so much higher than everyone else’s score,

So if I ranted,

Everyone else would feel bad and I couldn’t do that

In the last week,

I’ve gotten maybe 10 hours of sleep,

And it’s not just because of the chronic nightmares.

But because I’ve been waking up at 3am to work on that geometry project

Drawing floor plans, and then scribbling them out.

I used an entire notebook of graph paper just on Tuesday.

Every morning, I add another tally mark to that same sticky note.

The sticky note is something I would never tell my theatre teacher about,

Because the sticky note is a count of failures.

I count it at the end of every month,

And for each one, I dig my nails into my legs harder and harder.

After that month, the sticky mark goes in a box,

And at the end of each year, the box is dumped into a fire,

Or a river,

Or a ditch. (Yes, I know, it’s littering. I’m sorry.)

I know that I am a perfectionist-

I’ve been told and lectured about it enough to repeat the conversation in my sleep, in between snores.

To count the tally marks is to remember,

And to throw the box away is to let them go,

And i know it sounds silly,

But I collect sticky notes because I know I will make mistakes

And i can’t afford to not remember,

And i can’t afford to not let them go.

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