I don't need you, I want you
And for me that's a lot
Figuring out I can stand on my own
Just fine
I don't need your help, I've got this
But I want you to lift heavy things for me
Anyway

I don't need you, I want to
Take care of you in a way
That no one ever has
Forever
To be the unwavering support you've
Given up on having
I promise

I don't need you, I want you
And not to take advantage of
To hold when you need holding
Space and time and
Your body
To cry when we need to cry
To laugh when we want to laugh

I don't need you, I want you
And not desperately,
But fleetingly

I want you to be happy
I need you to be happy
But I want you anyway

This feels like the opposite of Rapunzel.

Like, you don't have hair
(Not long enough to pull myself up with, anyway,
Only long enough to pull you toward me)
And you're obviously a boy
But somehow I have to break you
Out of this fortress

Of your own brain
This prison you've locked yourself
Away in, and kicked away the key
Because no one ever showed you that
Life could be any different

My Gods, let me show you.
Let me hold you.
I know just how life can be different
How love can be different
I can show you

If I can just break you out
Of this ******* castle

I know there is a world,
Somewhere in the timeline
Maybe not that far down the stack,
Where you and I are together.

And wouldn't it be beautiful,
A world where we could be ourselves
The secret weird people we can only be
Together, you and I are somewhere

Beautiful, serene, so safe from
Everyone, everywhere, all at once
The madness has always quieted
Whenever you and I are together

This is what I imagine in my
Wildest, most wishful dreams
Our success, the things we could make
If you and I were together

I want a happily ever after

I yearn for it, the missing piece to my
Entirely complex life puzzle

And every single time I think I may have found it
I'm wrong

I just want to be right for once

You keep telling me to call it
"Say when"
But it's 4am and I'm still imagining
You trailing kisses up my thighs
Because you put the image there to begin with

I guess we've flipped roles.
You used to be the lion,
And I used to be the lamb
But I'd consume you before
I let this die

I'm not strong enough to call it.
You already know that.

It would really be something,
If these love letters
Became the start
Of everything
Real

You sounded like a little kid
When I was telling you to
Figure it out

Because it hurts you to be doing this
As much as it hurts me.

It's alright, if you want to let go.
All good things must end,
Right?

It's still always going to feel like a
Breakup

A rose by any other name, right?
That's what Shakespeare said, anyway,
In that one really epic story
About toxic love and how
Both people just die at the end
Anyway

Of course you're hurting my feelings.
You know you are.
It's the asking that makes it worse.
Because we both know it will never
Be a thing
And I have always wanted it to
Far more than you.
Because there's something just *******,
I dunno,
Romantic about the idea, isn't there?
Dropping everything and starting over
With someone that knows exactly the mess
You really are?

It's why I fall in love so often,
Dear one. It's why I try so hard.
I'm constantly chasing the feeling
That I know I can't get
Anywhere else
But here.

It's why when you're suddenly around when
My life is going to shambles, I blindly
Grasp at this last straw of creativity
Because this is where I find
My soul

But I don't want to break her heart.
And you don't belong to me.
And you never will.
We both know it.

But it still hurts just the same,
Doesn't it?
Whether it's real or just a facade

"You'd be my first pick."
Man I'm always dumb enough to fall for the lines,
The ways their eyes crinkle when they smile,
The lustful flirtations that fuel the very deepest broken part of me.
          I just desperately need to be wanted
I guess I should know better by now,
as many times as I've spun this wheel,
That it's always more of the same stupid games that never make sense.
          I don't think I've ever really been worthy of love
I should have figured you out from the rip, I'm so good at boys like you,
The ones that don't know how good they are because they wear their brokenness like an impenetrable armor,
I'm so good at loving you
          I don't know why I'm still just not good enough
"What've I said about degrading yourself with words?"