Maybe you don't want me
But you only want to be wanted
So I will take what you can give me
To fix my broken heart, and

I know it's not forever, and
I know this is a trap

All the love I give you
Will stab me in the back

But where can I go wrong
If it's all never gone right
I'll keep shooting in the dark
Let it go without a fight

I have nothing left to give, but
Everything I have
Unless I keep it to myself
I'll be alone until the last

So, maybe you don't want me
But you only want to be wanted
So I will take the pieces you give me
To fix my broken heart, and

I know it's not forever, and
I know this is a trap

One day, maybe, someday
You'll want to love me back.

I wish I could turn it off
And be happy with being alone
No longer wish for connections
Stop wanting the things that hurt me.

I am happy alone
But I would be happier if I wasn't
And seeing the empty space beside me
Has made all the difference.

It distracts from the view
Though I wish it didn't
And even if I don't look, I can hear it, in the silence
I wish I could be happier alone.

I miss who I used to think I was
When I loved myself
In ignorant bliss
Of my flaws, and the mistakes I had yet to make.

As I've grown older, I've come to know myself better
And I can't say if I've liked the change.
But I'm stuck here with me, for better or for worse
So we will bear the growing pains

From old me, to new me
Pretending to shift while staying the same
Fooling myself with the same name
Unable to decipher these blaming games

Who or what is responsible for how I turned out
I don't know
But I know I'm not who I thought I'd be, at twenty-three
At least I still have hope that time will make up the difference.

Why does hope
Sometimes feel like barbs in my heart?
Is that the doubt creeping in
Or the poison of my dreams
Slowly, finally
Starting the process of my own death?

Why is it
That I give others the power to hurt me
So quickly
Before I'm sure they won't?

I watch myself do it,
Like when the horror movie turns towards the basement
And as they walk down the stairs
I scream for them to stop,
And yet that is simply the way the story goes.

To avoid it is to stop playing the movie altogether
And while I know what is coming
I know I need to simply let it play
To see the end at all.

Helping myself
But what is it all for?
I climb slowly out of the hole
I didn't realize I had been digging for myself
Though I know as my vision crosses the rim
There will be nothing but a foggy open field.
Damp in the clouded light,
Unable to tell evening from night
Sunlight or moonlight, it makes no difference
I have no flashlight anyway
And no one is here from whom I could ask for one.

It is good to want for yourself
But what is the good in wanting,
If you are wanting alone?

I guess the hope is in the waiting
For a light across the field
Maybe, there is only the theory
You could only chance finding another
If you have both climbed out to the surface.

Hours, waiting
Left at the dock
The water cool as I dip my feet
Pants rolled above my ankles
The sun sets beyond the horizon
As I know he's not coming,
But I try to enjoy the evening anyway.

Each time the note is slipped under my door
The handwriting is different, the phrasing
But the date and place is always the same
So every Friday, this is where I am:
Alone, waiting.

Someone smarter, maybe,
Better in some way
Better for herself, or better for someone else
Might not have found themselves in such a position
For these propositions.
I can't even tell if they're from strangers, or maybe
Just written from myself, and I can't remember

But I hope, anyway,
And I show up
Just in case
There was a reason left
For hoping.