Sure, you'll be safe from the inherit harm of existence, safe from love, safe from bruises. But I don't want that. I have never wanted that. I seek, I strive to live, and to not simply be alive. I want to lead my life in a way that leaves my entire existence throbbing with ungarnished vitality, with my veins pulsing with the stories of last night. I want to live life, not carefully but passionately. I will age with scars, and callouses, and cuts, and regrets, and warmth, and hollow spots, and darkened eyes, and misses chances, and dead friends, and promises I kept, and worn photos, and bad credit, and sad, sad stories.

I will be happier than you. Not because I had more, or did more, or saw more, or loved more, or lived more, but because I will have existed apart from that eternal doubt that would otherwise beat at my brain.

 R