There's this inevitable pressure to be perfect. To become that which your parent's desire. The perfect daughter. Innocent, beautiful, smart. But what if I'm none of those things? What if I'm just an ordinary blob of nothing? I hate this feeling. So much. Because I can't ignore it. It hangs in my chest, in looming fashion, burning bright with urgency, taunting me. It makes my stomach churn, and my heartbeat quicken and my imagination run cold. 

It's funny. Because when I was thirteen, I'd make every situation a bigger deal than it truly was. Wanted to over-dramatize my inner conflicts. Just so I could be like those actors. I wanted to feel that desperate emotion, that love, that sorrow, that pain. I didn't know that then, but those feelings burn ragged scars into my soul. And I wish they weren't so deep, because, with each plunge of a knife, they leave hollowing emptiness. Make it ugly and stupid and painful. My heart. Beating. 

I used to imagine my future, but I don't anymore. I don't like to breathe this anxiety, this unlikely expectation. But rather I daydream of the present, because I know, with all certainty, that it will never happen.