What do you hope to do before you die?

What do you hope to do before you die?

Love

I hope to love

I hope to love so thoroughly 

So constantly 

So deeply

It feels like breathing 

I hope to love so continuously 

So contagiously

So vigorously 

It feels excruciating 

I hope to love so enthusiastically 

So intensely 

So incredibly 

It feels impossible 

I hope to love in a way that doesn’t feel fleeting

Or delicate

In a way that envelopes me so wholly

I can’t imagine living without it

Live

I hope to live

I hope to live without regrets

In a way that I won't look back on morosely 

In a way that I won't wish for more time

Because i’ll have lived 

Really lived

I’ll have traveled

And eaten

And built relationships 

I’ll have lived in a way 

So that when I look into a mirror

I’ll see lines creased into my face

Lines from times where my cheeks

Burned from smiling

And my ribs ached from laughing 

Because to live

To really live 

Is to live with others

To live without regrets

To live is to love 

To live is to not live perfectly 

It is to make mistakes

And grow

And learn

It is to feel

To cry

And to laugh

To scream

And shout

And ruin yourself

Just to fix it again

To live is to not be afraid

It is to allow yourself to do the wrong thing

It is to apologize 

But not too much 

It is to realize you aren’t inordinate 

Or insignificant 

And to let things go

It is to share your opinion 

And listen to others’

To not be unyielding in yours 

But not to change to please

It is to get to a place

That no matter how much you 

Mismanaged 

You wouldn’t go back and fix it

It is to get to a place

That no matter how many times you misspoke

You wouldn’t go back and apologize 

It is to know you asked for forgiveness 

Not permission 

Or you didn’t ask at all