Perfection.

You know what perfection tastes like?

Chalk. Dust. The metallic tang of blood from biting your tongue too hard trying not to say the wrong thing.

I used to collate perfect moments like other people collect stamps, meticulously preserved, never touched, displayed behind glass where they couldn't get dirty or real or human. My perfect moments were museum pieces, and I was both the curator and the prison guard, making sure nothing ever got too close, too messy, too alive.

Perfection is a hungry ghost, you know. Always starving, never satisfied. Feed it your best work and it'll tell you about the comma you missed. Give it your heart and it'll point out the irregular rhythm. Show it your love and it'll measure the distance between intention and execution, finding you wanting every single time.

I remember being seven, standing in my grandmother's kitchen, watching her make jollof rice. Her hands moved like water, no measuring cups, no deliberate calculations,just intuition and love and the kind of perfection that comes from not trying to be perfect at all. The rice was a little burnt at the bottom, the way she liked it, the way it was supposed to be. "Perfect" rice from a restaurant never tasted like home.

But I didn't learn that lesson then. No, I spent years trying to measure love, to calculate joy, to perfect the art of being human. I color-coded my emotions, scheduled my spontaneity, practiced my laughter in the mirror,in my voice recordings until it sounded just right. I was building a beautiful cage and calling it a life.

Perfection whispers such pretty lies. It tells you that once you fix this one thing, smooth out this one wrinkle, achieve this one standard, then,oh, then you'll be worthy of love, of success, of taking up space in the world. But perfection is a loan shark, and the interest keeps compounding. You can never pay it back because the debt keeps growing, and the currency is your life, your joy, your ability to breathe without permission.

I've seen perfection kill more dreams than failure ever could. Failure at least lets you try again. Perfection tells you not to try at all unless you can guarantee the outcome. It's the art teacher who never paints, the writer who never publishes, the lover who never risks heartbreak. Perfection is the slow suicide of the soul.

But here's what they don't tell you in the perfectionist's handbook: the cracks are where the light gets in. The mistakes are where the magic happens. The flaws are where the beauty blooms. Cliché? But let's make do with it.

My favorite poem has a grammatical crack in the second verse. Dodsn’t even conform to the rules of concord. My favorite book has a typo on page 47. My favorite person snorts when they laugh too hard, I apologize that I can't keep secrets. These aren't bugs in the system,they're features. They're the signatures of life, the proof that something real happened here, that a human being dared to create something without apologizing for existing.

Perfection is a smooth surface with nothing to hold onto. Give me rough edges, give me something I can grip, something that'll cut my hands and prove I was here. Give me the burnt rice, the crooked smile, the love letter with spelling mistakes. Give me the dance where someone steps on toes, the hug that smells like a long tiring day at work, the conversation that trails off into comfortable silence.

I quit perfection on a Tuesday. Just walked away from the whole operation. Left my measuring sticks and my impossibly high standards and my need to be flawless right there on the sidewalk like a bad relationship. And you know what happened? The world didn't end. The sun still came up. People still loved me, maybe more than before, because I finally gave them something real to love.

Now I collect imperfect moments. The way coffee tastes better when you're running late. The way flowers look more beautiful slightly wilted. The way Nasheeds sound perfect when you're reciting them badly in the car with the windows down. The way love feels when you stop trying to earn it and just let it happen.

Perfection is the enemy of done, the killer of good enough, the thief of now. It's the voice that says wait, wait, wait until you're ready, until you're better, until you're worthy. But ready is a moving target, better is a bottomless pit, and worthy is something you were born being.

So my dear stranger,here's to the beautiful mess of being human. Here's to the crooked lines, the imperfect timing, the love that spills over the edges. Here's to the courage to be seen, flaws and all. Here's to the revolutionary act of being perfectly, gloriously, unapologetically imperfect.

Because perfection is just another word for not quite living, and I'm done with that. I'm done with the museum, done with the glass cases, done with the careful preservation of moments that were meant to be lived, not displayed.

I choose the burnt rice. I choose the voice crack. I choose the love letter with spelling mistakes. I choose the slightly sweaty hugs. I choose the smiles with tears and muffled cries of “It felt good talking you about this”. I choose life, messy and imperfect and absolutely, completely, perfectly enough.

The ghost is still hungry, still whispering its pretty lies. But I'm not feeding it anymore. I'm too busy living to worry about being perfect at it.