A text by Ryan Eykholt

I will never get married.
I told this to myself this summer.
It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get married,
and I’m also not always the best at keeping promises to myself.
I see a lot of beauty in making a commitment to someone.
But in my experience,
I have seen the beginning of a marriage as a celebration
and the end of a marriage as a failure.
In the past, when people have passed in and out of my life, I encounter a sense of melancholy.
We should learn to hold onto change as tightly as we do a lover.
We should learn to love in the fourth dimension.
We should learn to look at bodies without expectation.
Because we never truly know a person, but we may come to know intimately an event shared between two people.
By saying I will never get married,
I open myself up to honor friendships, passing moments with strangers, and romantic entanglements with equal care.