The Dark and Hollow Places

For all you people who feel imperfect.

Imperfection is human, so why do we strive for something that we can never be? It's because the people around us tell us all the time that we aren't good enough. We are ugly and fat and useless and unworthy of love, it seems. At least, that's how I feel. And how is it that no matter how hard we try, no one seems hurt in the end but ourselves?
We aren't physically scarred, but we all know what goes on inside our own heads. That voice telling us to just fix it. Perhaps we can be strong enough to change ourselves.
Starvation, self-destruction, irreversable damage done to change. In the end, still no one notices. Don't they understand the pain we go through to please them? But I guess they don't really matter, do they?
The problem is ourselves. We invent the monsters in our heads.
I've been fasting all week, and for what? For who? Why do I even have these thoughts? Does anyone specifically tell me to be this way, that I'm not good enough?
All of my friends seem better, prettier, funnier, skinnier, more charismatic, sweeter, more talented and what am I? The generalist, who cannot for the life of me achieve something greater than they can. S, and her perfect body. H, and her easy jokes that pull others in. C, and her thieving personality, taking from me what I thought was mine. The boys I thought  for once might like me for me. E, and her gentle honesty that I can never match. The Perfect One, who can do everything that I can, but better. I love them all, but they make me hate myself.
Especially The Perfect One. She is essentially a better me than I myself. My hair is dark, curly, my skin is pale. Her hair is darker, curlier, her skin is paler. I am a dancer, a writer, an artist. She is a ballerina, an author, a regular Degas. I am intellegent. She is a genius. I have too much fat where there shouldn't be any, and too little where it should.
She. Is. Perfect.
How is it that the rest of us can be so inferior?
I suppose we should all just keep striving for the impossible perfection in case we might actually be able to reach it. At least the one bored person reading this can know that they are more perfect than I will ever be.