I prefer going to movies alone.

I prefer to star in life alongside other people.

I prefer a soaking along the Atlantic.

I prefer Keyes to Keynes.

I prefer myself liking myself

to myself disliking everyone else.

I prefer to keep a needle on the record, than just CDs in cases .

I prefer the colour clean.

I prefer not to make a mountain

out of every cliff.

I prefer inceptions.

I prefer to finish, nearly.

I prefer talking to police about something else.

I prefer coast-lined habitations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing to myself

to the absurdity of speaking this to others.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, specific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every year.

I prefer loyalists

who plámás me nothing.

I prefer being mindful to mindfulness.

I prefer the down-to-earth civilians.

I prefer listening to being listened to.

I prefer having some ultimatums.

I prefer the heaven of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer the what’s not to the what’s hot

I prefer leaving with hugs to arriving to kisses.

I prefer unchopped tales to truncated tweets.

I prefer truthful eyes, since mine are no good at lying.

I prefer writing bureaus.

I prefer many things that I haven’t mentioned here

to many things I’ve also left unsaid.

I prefer heroes you’ve never heard of

to those most feted figures you have.

I prefer the Time of  Tom Waits to the Time of New York’s Square.

I prefer to not step on the cracks.

I prefer not to ask how and why.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility

that persistence has its own way of navigating.

By (mainly) Wislawa Szymborska