This piece is in response to
Prompt “A Perfectly Ruined Thing”
They say most wounds heal over time. But the urge to pick apart the scabs and tear apart the eschars is overwhelmingly strong, like an itch that wants – no, needs – to be scratched. Because sometimes, when something’s too perfect, you don’t know where you fit inside it. There must be a monster inside of you, inside of us. Whispering and mumbling, maybe that’s why we’re drawn to the ruin. Why, we wonder what it would feel like to destroy ourselves.
The Push
She packed her bag. He watched silently. She looked at him. He looked at her. She huffed silently, half-wishing he would stop her, but her mind had already been made. She would leave before he learned she wasn’t “the one”.
Every time he complimented her, she heard a mocking noise. Every time he smiled at her, she saw a sneer. Every time they laughed together, she imagined he was laughing at her. The monster would whisper thoughts and sew seeds of doubt, and her head would harvest words of mistrust.
He was the stuff of every woman’s dreams. He was the paragon of a loving partner. He adored her and she, him. But the quiet was unsettling. The lack of fire and hot fiery stones being thrown about threw her off. The monster inside her had nothing to feed on, nothing to munch off, and nothing to chew out.
And so, she packed a bag, called a cab and left.
The Burn
No one understood why. No one could fathom it. How could such a bright young man crash and burn?
He had worked all night, slaving away like a biblical Egyptian was holding a whip over him. Writing and rewriting the report. The monster had whispered, of course, sewing stitches on the edges of his mind. But he continued to write the report religiously.
He stared at the finished report, his big break. The thing that would finally lift him above his peers. The time was 11:30 pm.
He stared at the empty screen, satisfied. It was 12 a.m. There was no room for redemption anymore. He would be fired.
He knew that nothing good could come of his success. He didn’t want it, he rather revelled in the ruin. It was perfect. This moment, this time, this juncture.
Another job gone, another win for the monster.
The Ghost
There was always an excuse: busy, tired, or not in the mood. She cancelled plans, left invitations on read, and didn’t respond to messages. She was the princess of pushing people away.
When they’d open up and be vulnerable, she’d air them. Even when they didn’t pressure her or expect her to be perfect, she never let them get close.
She loved her friends, truly. But each time one got too close, she felt this urge to run—like most Christians love God but always run from him when he wants to get close.
The silence seemed better because there was no one to disappoint but herself.
Eventually, the messages stopped coming. The invitations stopped coming. The plans stopped including her. And she was left wondering why no one ever stuck around.
The Death
The room is deathly quiet. I can hear the blood in my veins flow. I can’t hear my heart though. It’s almost like a sign, a premonition of the certain death to come.
Perfect wife, perfect children, perfect life. Perfect me. Everything perfect. It sickens me. It makes my blood boil. The blood will soon stain the earth, so I take comfort in that.
I sit still. I stare at the reflection of the knife in the fluorescent light. Glistening. The letters are sealed with perfect cursive, explaining without really explaining. Even now, everything is perfect.
It is time. I look at the knife and I see my hauntingly handsome face staring back at me.
I lift my hands like a conductor controlling a band in an opera.
The sight of my blood on the brown tiles mixing to form a strawberry-coloured purée is the last thing I see.
In the end, maybe we’re all drawn to ruin because it’s the only thing that feels honest—messy, flawed, and real in a world that demands perfection. Each scar, each choice to self-destruct, is a small rebellion against the pressure to be unbreakable. Sometimes, ruin isn’t failure; it’s a release, an acceptance of the chaos within us. Because if there’s beauty in broken things, maybe there’s beauty in us, too.