#iwouldrather

I will never be a well behaved woman. I would rather pass my days lying in the middle of dirt roads, staring at the full moon with a bottle of summer red in my palms. I would rather have kids when it suits me, not when society expects or throws shoulds. I would rather live in a hammock on a beach for six months, and write like my soul means it. I would rather be horribly broke at times, than married to a job because a mortgage payment has my ass on a hook. I would rather own moments, than investments. I would rather eat alone, than sit with women who bore me at “Wives’ Night.” I would rather swim naked with bioluminescence, have it fall like fireflies from my hair, my breasts, my back. I would rather do handstands naked in the moonlight when no one’s watching than pick bridesmaid dresses. I would rather drink seven year old rum from a sandy bottle, smell of smoke and ash than sit in church. I would rather learn from life than rack up debt, in a desk. I would rather drink the ocean, again and again—celebrate being madly alive. I would rather my love be defined by love itself, and nothing more or less. I don’t need a ring on my finger to prove that I am in love. I would rather take the chicken bus, than spend useless money in safe gated communities. Sit beside a goat, listen to raggaeton and eat green mango with sugar in a plastic bag sold from the woman who harasses the bus each time it stops. I do not need a degree to prove that I am intelligent. I do not need to own a piece of earth with some wood on top of it—to feel successful. No one truly owns the land, anyway—we just think we do. My savings account has diddly to do with my richness. I would rather sprawl my single ass out like a lioness each morning and enjoy each corner of my empty bed. I will take a job I love and freedom over a pension, any day. I will not work and work and work to live when my body is old and I am tired. Stocks are for people who get boners from money. Not everyone should have kids, and my eggs aren’t expiring. I will not drink the societal Kool-Aid on a bus, nor will I drink it on a train. Not on a plane, with a goat, in the rain, in the dark, in a tree, with a fox, in a box! I will not jump through societies’ hoops and red tape, the treasure hunt in the rat race we chase. If we must have milestones—mine will be measured by how much joy I have collected at the end of each day and how often in this life I have truly, deeply, opened. Seek, see, love, do. 📷 by Ali Kaukas