I have been treated like a game and people ask me why.
I just want to sit on the sidelines.
Do you know what it’s like to be looked at as a number,
As flesh, as something that can fulfill someone’s temporary
Needs when all you want is so to be wanted as a person?

You start to believe it. You start to believe you can only
Be beautiful in the context of one night, one picture.
You start to believe you are as shallow as the compliments
That are copied to you and several other people.
You start to believe you have to fight for someone’s
Attention when you should never have to do that.
You start to believe that only certain clothes
make you attractive because when you’re wearing them, they notice you.
You start to believe your opinions don’t matter because
they don’t want to hear them.
You start to believe you will have to settle for an empty
day or week of flirting just so you can feel something.
You start to believe that there isn’t such a thing as love
because no one seems to be looking for it.
At least that’s what I started to believe.
I have lost sleep over people who didn’t even
consider me a loss. I have waited for texts and
phone calls that were never coming.
I have romanticized words and gestures that
were far from romantic.
I have fallen for people only to realize it was
because they pushed me. I have broken my own
heart on the behalf of other people.
I have laid right next to people who might as well
have been 100 miles away.
I have believed words that were empty.
I have let all of this happen in an attempt to find love,
and I have found the opposite.
   Maybe there are people who don’t need or want something
that lasts, something that’s real, something that you want to
share in the morning light and not hide in the night.
Maybe there are people who don’t realize the games they
play have losers. Maybe there are people need nothing
more than a night or a weekend or repeated words.
And I guess all of that is okay. But I am not like that,
and that’s okay.

I want someone that I can fall asleep next to with
a smile on my face. I want someone who doesn’t make
me wait and wonder. I want words that are spoken
just for me. I want to fall for someone with the promise
that they will catch me. I want someone who tries not to
hurt me and cares if they do. I want someone who feels like
they’re right next to me even when they are 100 miles away.
I want to feel something that even scratches
the surface of what love is.
No matter where I go or what I do, you'll always be the one person I hope I can one day come home to.