By Dr. Adnan Bozan

Do you know, my dearest…
What frightens me most in this life is not illness pinning me to bed, nor crowds abandoning me, nor even death sneaking up on me disguised as a shiver or a sleepy breath...
What truly terrifies me is to wake up one belated morning and realize I never truly lived — I was merely consumed.
That I counted my days like prisoners count their steps in a windowless cell.
That I crossed life like a stranger wandering a road he does not know — without leaving behind even a single footprint in the sand, or a single scream in the air.

To wake one day and find myself… with no living memory, no single moment where my soul fluttered like the wing of a bird reborn from its ashes.
I never laughed until tears blurred my vision, never loved until I forgot my own name.
I never ran under the rain like a reckless child, never danced as if the world were ending tonight.
I never screamed because something inside me shattered, nor wept because something truly deserved my tears.

All I ever did... was say "I'm fine" — that white lie we wrap around our wounds like a bandage over a gash we're too afraid to expose.

Do you know...
I'm afraid that what I’ve lived was just a long play with no climax, no final scene worthy of applause.
That my heart has learned to beat with a mechanical rhythm unfamiliar to music or emotion — only known to schedules, biological clocks, and the commandments fear has etched on the walls of my soul.

I'm afraid I never chose anything.
That I simply walked the paths drawn for me, wore the masks crafted for me, lived a story written by others —
without ever shouting in the face of life:
"Stop! I want to get off here — where love, madness, honesty, and full, naked truth live!"

Do you know what real death is?
It’s to pass through life without ever being touched.
Without being shaken by the sight of a sunset painting the sky with the colors of longing.
Without hearing a song and feeling it was written just for you.
Without falling in love with someone simply because their voice sounds like home, or because their eyes know how to ask, “How was your day?” — in a way that feels like being rescued from drowning.

Real death, my love...
Is forgetting that you are human.
That you are fragile, broken, hungry for touch, for wonder, for madness, for dancing at the edge.

I wanted to love you the way a madman loves the echo of his voice in faraway forests.
To see you in every woman's face.
To write you into every poem.
To tell the world I once met life — in your eyes.
But at some moment, I got scared...
Scared to love, scared to lose, scared to truly be alive.

So I returned to my shell, to my walls, to my books —
books that bear witness that I was a great reader of life…
but never a part of it.

How painful it is to witness your own life from behind glass —
to watch all the beautiful moments pass by like trains that never stop at your station.
To live the lives of others,
and forget to ask, “Where was I?”

The greatest regret a person can ever feel is not that they made too many mistakes —
but that they lived without ever making any.
Because, simply…
they never dared to truly live.

Do you know what I wish for now, my dear?
Not immortality, nor glory, nor ultimate truth.
All I long for is a single moment —
to scream from the depths of my being:
“I am alive!
I am here!
I am not just a number in the ledger of days...
I am breath, and tear, and kiss, and fear, and an unquenchable passion!”

There may not be much time left in life,
but I want to live what remains as one walking on fire, not asphalt.
As one who loves until he burns.
As one who cries because his tears water the fields.
As one who writes because paper longs for his scream.

So...
Will you let me live, my love?
Will you take my hand and say, “Let’s laugh like madmen”?
Will we invent a moment unlike anything we’ve ever lived before?
Will we defeat real death… and live?
Even if for a single day?
Even if for an hour?
Even if… now?