I am afraid. Afraid of not living. Afraid of not dying well, of reaching the end and wishing for more time, more love, more breath, more words. I’m serious. It’s fear that drives me. I do not want to take one more breath with these words inside me. I cannot face tomorrow knowing there are things I wanted to say to this world that I did not. Words held up at the gate, crashing and cracking against gritted teeth. No. I am afraid of dying and not tasting the sweetness of the Beloved’s name as it leaves my lips. I am afraid of leaving some part of me in the dark. I am afraid of not surrendering my heart to the sky under one October sunset, and then the next, and the next.

I am afraid of sitting down at this computer and not bleeding. Not crying as I write words that feel like kisses and freedom and the sky at dawn. I am afraid of not cutting out pieces of my heart to give to you, because I know, from experience, that hearts regrow. They grow hearts of their own that go on beating and writing and creating. I am afraid that I will go on doing my great work. That these words will enter you. And maybe you’ll walk into this like a house. Maybe it will feel familiar and scary. Perhaps you’ll admit that you are afraid too. to not live, afraid to not die well. Afraid to leave this world with an unlived life inside of you.

And I am afraid of all these things but mostly I am afraid that you will read this, and then you will go on clicking. And you will buy a pair of pants today. And do the dishes and go on eating brunch as if you hadn’t just brushed something deep and sacred and afraid in you. And this fear of not living will be buried again, under a house of distractions. And your unlived life will sink down into your guts where it will go on living in the dark, with very little breath.

I know you know things about that life that you wish you didn’t. I know you know what it wants and you are afraid to give it. I’m afraid, too. We can be afraid together. I’m afraid that if I give it an inch, it will want a foot. If I say one word that echoes truth through my bones, then it will want a sentence, then another, then another. Maybe you too. Maybe if you give the unlived life a single note hummed in the quiet of your room, it will want a chorus, then it will wreck you with a full song, then another, and another.

And tell me, how would it feel to be wrecked by the passion, the desire, the love that wells up in you? What unimagined pleasure could be birthed from such unleashing of your essential life force?

Fear is here. It always will be. Pull up a chair. Plop yourself down. Open it up. Put that fear in service of good. Let it be a fear of the unlived life, for that is the most dangerous thing. Do not die without giving your body over to pleasure. Do not wake up another day without speaking what has cluttered, collected, congealed in your throat. We need it. You need it. The world needs it.