Between moments of tender embraces and evenings falling asleep warm against another, it sometimes feels as though our wildness within can become silenced.

There are those who rebel against this world—who rebel against the “I have to do it this way…” and the “I shoulds”—just because we are brave enough to dream of a world we haven’t yet experienced. One in which we don’t need titles to know love, and where we don’t need rings in order to know it’s forever.

We’ve built ourselves up, out of the murky waters of trepidation and the fleeting seconds of letting down others, when we just couldn’t swallow normality in all of her bland taste. Not because we want to be difficult; rather, we choose to be different—and it’s that ideal that sung us to sleep all of the nights we went to bed alone.

It was within the space of not having a lover that we all pledged to never be tamed again. We cast our eyes sideways at all those dreaming of a diamond and a big, white wedding—knowing that in the end none of that guarantees happiness. None of it promises true love.

We are the wild ones.

We are the ones who keep everyone wondering just what we’re going to do next. We live without regard for fitting in, and we follow the call of the moon, which tempts us into the uncharted waters of following our own soul.

We wake with the effervescent sunrise brilliant in her amethyst beauty, and we give thanks for another day to try our best, to shake up this world like a child’s snow globe, knowing it has the possibility to just be beautiful.

The wild ones—the breaths of fresh air that streak through this life leaving the scent of freedom and rain wherever we go; the ones who taste of purple haze and drink tequila off men brave enough to stumble into our wonderment.

We are those who hold the entire universe between our delicious thighs. We live the life of love, and experience moments that bring tears to our eyes. We make others believe in what they never thought possible, and even to believe in themselves, despite the blockade of depreciation that has somehow convinced them they were meant to be mediocre.

There is an entire tribe of those who have promised to live differently, to love better, and to encourage the dreams and aspirations of others. To sacrifice and support, and at the end of day, to touch the souls of the ones we love as we come together and leave the world behind.

Loving doesn’t mean chains or expectations. It doesn’t mean a three-carat diamond or Italian silk. Love doesn’t mean “happily ever after,” because the love we build has no end.

But then, sometimes I’ve seen it happen—the shift from freedom to….well, how else are we supposed to define love if not in the way everyone else has? And so, we begin to quarrel, and we barter away our wildness in an attempt to make sense out of something that’s not flourishing.

Now, the blissful contradiction is that—for the wild ones—anything goes, and that means we may end up loving the diamond that our lover slides onto our finger. We might even be the one who meets him at the altar in a white dress—but the intention behind it is what determines whether we’re listening to the calling of our own soul, or if we’ve sold out because we think it’s our only option.

However, we have the ability to design our own love.

There are no set rules for anything—and though, at times, it seems easier to just follow society’s “formula for love,” we can’t let those ideas about love tame the wildness out of us.

We can’t forget that we’ve dreamed of swimming in every sea on this planet, or that we’ve already learned long ago that marriage is only a piece of paper, unless the bond behind it transcends the love into the timeless forever we all dream of.

No matter how sweet domesticity tastes, we can’t forget that within our hearts beats the wildness of a thousand stars. That underneath it all lays the soul of a wanderer—someone who sleeps naked beneath the ebony sky and who believes that this life is only limited by that which we can’t see.

Yet, perhaps, we may just find it hard to believe that we could find a love that is just as wild as us.

One who yearns to lick the juices of fresh mangos from our expectant lips—the kind of lover who will bathe with us under the stars in Bali and hold our hand as we duck and meander through the markets in Morocco. That just possibly, there exists a soul out there who knows not what forever “should be,” but rather, what it really feels like.

Love wants us wild. Love wants us to take no shortcuts or bargains in order to better understand how to gauge life, because the all-encompassing, passionate, dripping-like-honey love that we desire will never belong upon the checklist of normality.

This love is just as wild as you; it’s just as sweet and just as dark.

It is crimson kisses underneath the noon sun, and it is in poetry read by a winter’s fire. And perhaps, this love might wear diamonds or lace—but the difference is that it will never need to, because when it’s truly real, it speaks for itself. No adornments necessary.

But maybe, what it really comes down to is trusting in love as much as we trust ourselves—knowing that only a love that grows as wild as we do will ever be able to truly last forever.

And perhaps, that is what matters most.

~

Relephant:

For Those who Feel like they’ve Lost their Fire.

~

Author: Kate Rose
Image: Unsplash/Everton Vila
Editor: Yoli Ramazzina
Copy editor: Callie Rushton