Erin Anastasia - "Homework Habits of a Perfectionist" (Spoken Word Poetry)

Описание: Erin Anastasia competes in Montclair State University's Grand Slam.

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"Homework Habits of a Perfectionist"

Ask my parents.
They’ll tell you,
my favorite phrase growing up
was, “I can do it all by myself.”

One day, I sat spinning the top of my Flinstones vitamin bottle
wondering, how many spins until this thing opens?
My mom, insisting that she help,
No, I told her, I can do it all by myself,

And I’ve been doing this all by myself.
This, college thing,
in case you were wondering,
I’m getting out of here with a fantastic GPA
and a pretty impressive resume,
I don’t know about you,
but for me,
college, is great.

Except for, you know,
my tendency to sometimes,
a lot of the time, procrastinate.
Hey Facebook, hey old yearbook.
Is that picture frame hanging quite right?
Oh, what’s that? You want me to count the stars?
Sure, just give me a long enough essay to write.

Maybe one that’s worth twenty percent of my grade,
with potential to ruin my GPA,
when I need a 3.7, no I need a 3.8
if I even want to put it on my resume.
'Cause I want something more than that
9-5, commuter drive
making just enough to eat,
maybe this week I'll survive.

So I know, I know, It’s just an essay.
But it’s also just my life,
and I don’t want to write it wrong,
so I guess I'm not getting any sleep tonight.

And I get it, I’m a perfectionist.
Trust me, I’ve googled enough shit on it
to write a fucking Bible on it.
But nothing on those self-help sites seemed to help,
and there was that one week,
I resorted to punishing myself,
painting red tally marks on my bicep
for every night of the week I failed myself.

But how can I tell anyone this? -
That it took me three whole hours to write a goddamned sentence?
How pathetic.
And I’m too old for this self-harm bullshit.
So how do I fix this?
How do I fix this?
How do I sleep?
‘Cause I’ve gotten something like
ten hours of it this week
and when I’m driving late at night
the snakes turn into lines.
I mean, the lines turn into snakes.
Sometimes I hallucinate,
and everything starts spinning in circles
like the tops of bottles of vitamins,
and I’ll start
running in circles or,
walking in circles or,
crawling in circles or,
just lying on the ground,
treating my iPod shuffle like a magic eight ball.

Maybe The Front Bottoms will tell me what to do,
when I don’t know what to do.
I don't know what to do.
Last night, my forearms started to look a lot like canvases,
and I don’t own too many long sleeved shirts.
So before I go out and buy more long sleeved shirts,
I thought I’d try something else.

So this is me,
finally, admitting,
that maybe,
I can’t, do this,
all by, myself.