Without hesitation, question, or the slightest inkling of doubt, Krystal Hitake had always subscribed to the most conventional and widely accepted (albeit unrealistic) idea of love that Disney, rom-coms, and sitcoms had to offer: a sweep-you-off-your-feet, solve-all-your-problems-with-a-kiss, you'll-know-it-when-you-feel-it kind of love. The kind that leads to getting kissed in the rain; dramatic, public declarations, shouted from the rooftops; lush weddings that melt into marital bliss. Nevermind that not a single couple in her life exemplified any of it, nor that she'd never been in an actual relationship (because despite what she wanted to believe, having sex with the same person for one whole month did not constitute a legitimate partnership). Against all odds and common sense, she believed in love, plain and simple. "Believed," as in past tense. Because on January 2, 2018, the paradigm shifted. That was the day that her parents sat her down, and after hemming and hawing for several minutes, finally admitted that they were getting a divorce. Twenty-four years of marriage over and done with, just like that. January 2, 2018 is when Krystal's story really began.

There’s a hole in the door

But you don’t feel no better

Just as angry as before

but with a bloody splinter

I didn’t mean

to make you

hurt

Something inside you

is always aching

Always a tension

on the verge of breaking

I never wanted

to coax the darkness out

I didn’t mean

to make you

shout

How can I heal you

when your heart’s an open wound?

Just existing

tears it open further, too

You’ve been conditioned

to ignore the pain

Let it build up

until you go insane

I never wanted

your suffering to be my gain

But how can I help you

when I never learned how?

I didn’t mean

to break you

down

Can we start over?

Can I bandage up your hand?

This anger and this rage

ain't what it takes to be a man

I'd like to hold you gently

but you must learn to let me

I only mean

to love you

now

But if you don't love you first

it'll never count

It’s time we expose perfectionism for what it is: a disease. A parasite. Sickness. Extremely annoying. Call it whatever strikes your fancy, just don’t try to write it off as a personality quirk or coyly call it your “weakness” in a job interview as some sort of humble brag.

Perfectionism rots us slowly from the inside out. It can start out innocently enough -- straighten a crooked picture frame, proofread your essay a fourth time so every comma is just so -- but even the flu that wiped out half the global population probably looked like the common cold at first.

All I’m saying is, perfectionism is paralyzing. If you don’t learn to control it, it will control you. Left unchecked, it will make your life more stagnant than a shit-filled Saharan watering hole in the dead of August. All I’m saying is, I don’t write, I don’t explore, I don’t do anything new, try anything, because I know I can’t be perfect. So I don’t. Do. Anything. What kind of life is that, living in perpetual fear of failure? What’s pitiful is, the hypothetical failure that has kept me rooted to the same place in my life for the last x amount of years isn’t even the most major, life-altering kind of failure. I’m afraid of the smallest, most inconsequential failures -- the kind of failures that a normal, sane person might call a speedbump, a learning curve, trial and error. The failure that I fear the most is the failure to be good at something as simple and subjective as writing. I don’t want to produce anything bad so instead I produce nothing. What a joke: the writer who doesn’t write.

My perfectionism is a sickness. Reckless abandon, in the form of unfiltered word vomit, unapologetic garbage, and purposely misplaced commas, is the cure.

What terrible mess will I allow myself to create without this senseless, needless fear?

We cherish the ones who leave--beds, apartments, fingerprints on skin, scars on hearts. The ones who leave by choice and not by death, the ones who continue to exist in someone else’s life, just not yours. The ones we wonder about when we’re alone. The ones we can’t leave behind. We hold them the closest, in clenched fists, as if there’s any holding on to vapor.

We make room for them in our hearts as if they deserve anything more than a move to the trash heap of our inbox, an unfriend, unfollow, unsubscribe from their bullshit.

I’ve carried him, the abandoner, The One Who Left, for seven years. I revisit him in dreams just to be left again when I wake. Over. And over. For seven years. Every line I write leads back to him, a path followed until it becomes a rut and even now I dig myself deeper.

If I can’t rid myself of him, maybe I can settle for relocation. From my heart to my appendix. Part of me, but wholly unnecessary. Like I was to him, am to him, will always be to him. Removable.

The truth tastes tainted

Thrust through tightened teeth

Tall tales tranquilize tortured thinkers

Turning thorns to tulips

When love is pure, I'm told,

it's something celestial,

transcendental

But what we have is something terrestrial,

gritty as dirt under our nails

and fists full of our own hair

and throats raw from screaming

and souls stripped bare

We're not heavenly bodies

just somebodies

who could maybe make it work with anybody

but nobody wants to put up with our shit,

at least that's how we think,

so we grimace and grind and swallow the grit

saying it'll make us stronger,

thicken our skin

but it's already so thick

we can't let each other in

We pick at each other just to see if we bleed

as if another scar is really what we need

We fight and make up

so we don't have to sleep alone,

two stray dogs who will take a beating

if it means having a home

You are my shelter

and the storm from which I hide,

a paradoxical dysnfunction I can't deny

Cut from different cloths

but we've sewn ourselves together

The stitches are tearing

but we say this is forever

We're only human,

it's like us to be so naive

but I can't start over again

so I have to believe

in us, in love, in earthly, everyday things

In us, I entrust my fragile sanity

Keep it safe

in your hands

like a flightless bird

In your mouth

hold my name

like a sacred word

We may be dirt and ash and dust

but everything on this Earth

was heavenly once.

Who are we to decide

Who lives and who dies?

Who are we to toy

with other beings’ lives?

We think we are so clever

We think we are so strong

But if we were stripped down

we’d realize we are so wrong

Soft and thin we are

Easy to rip apart

Without our clothes and our money

we wither away

So who are we to decide

whose lives to save?

Who are we to define

intelligence or worth?

Who are we but just another

species on this Earth?

Whether a human or a pig

we’re all just as small

and just as big

Just as willing to fight to live

We are all fighting to live

I see my age not in wrinkles or gray hairs but in engagement rings and sonograms. 20-somethings eager to be 30-somethings, to dye their hair back to its natural color and stroll the aisles of Home Depot on a Saturday morning. I sit somewhere in between, unwilling to ever relinquish control of my life for offspring, but yearning for a little something to anchor me to "the real world" that I've been warned about since college (is that anchor a wedding band? am I better off lost at sea?).

My generation is in a hurry to grow up, racing to be the first to announce their engagement/wedding/first baby/first house on Instagram. Curated happiness. #adulting. Behind the scenes we're falling apart, but no one wants to see that mess. Put a filter on it, brighten the deadness in your eyes. Everything's fine! We can't afford to dream anymore because dreams don't pay off our student loans, but everything is fine. We're slowly decaying inside but everything. is. fine.