Are you only as worthy as you are needed?

There is only enough me for me, not even that
There is not enough of me to go around,
to be your world, too. I cannot mean that much to you.
It scares me. Because I cannot hold you and I am
spread thin and shallow already.

Sometimes, on bad days, I think how perfect
a poem would be. Then I turn on the radio
until I forget
about anything but mediocrity again, because--
it's too painful. Too real.

What we used to call soul. Now we mean
"my boyfriend's across town probably with that other girl again"
but we used to mean "I need
something more than two a.m. streetlamps and used condoms."

I am distantly interested in this break in society.
This is the break in me.
In the moment of ecstasy when the ecstasy is me.
I mean words.

I cried when I heard it on the radio, the Elton John song
I will always think is about death. I lied,
it wasn't the radio. The internet.
I searched it out, I typed in lyrics, I clicked play.
Button after button. Pure sap. Pure lies.

Your shallow breaths make me want to be hollow inside,
but all I really want is enough distance from this to think,
until your breaths are no longer in sync with mine.

Was I once rejected this way? I must have been, to know
so intimately the details of destruction, to have perfected
so early the cold gazes and dull disinterest in this red heart.
I am the perfect conductor, the fork in the electric socket.
Given, I give. Pulled, I push. Action and reaction, link
in the chain. Chains. How appropriate. Lust and love rusted through.
Guilt, oily and thick with smug tones of voice, tying me here
to this bedpost.

Your worth does not need my need. My need.
Is undeserving of your worth. How much of this can I tell you?
Never tell you.

Needlessly, I apologize. Words cannot fix silences and
amateur psych-philosophy. Go back to sleep, love. I will
watch over your dreams,
keep the radio low,
words to soothe and slumber.

(Echoes of ecstasy in need.)

Written by [little flag]

She was a friend to me.
Her tired face and paper hands,
Her smile was meek and temperance mellow.
Spaghetti and beef on a Tuesday.
Cousins smiling, laughing.
Her hair turned white with age,
The hugs became smaller,
Body weak and frail.
The bed had railings,
Steel bars enclosing brittle bones.
It was that winter her hip misled,
Falling to the ugly patterned carpets.
After that she was a ghost,
A shell with no hope of returning.
Her last breaths were of I love you,
Her touch gripping yet like a horrible handshake.
I still talk out loud,
Whisper my pursuits and pains of life,
Hoping that somewhere she is listening.

Written by [Olwen]

my tears water a soil
lacking those
essential nutrients required
for full functionality,
growth and prosperity

biochemistry,
like lack of sleep
my brain lacks the ability of
contentment, my skin the ability
to reason

and yes, they were right when they said
that we'd pay for acting strong, young
and utterly untouchable like stars
so hot and so massive, they'd disintegrate
on contact

on earth, with gravity pulling
on eyelids and tears, I struggle
to stay up on the hazy surface
where all is ugly,
but safe

and when I let go, stormy,
oligotrophic waters grasp me,
throwing me against hard,
unforgiving rocks, then
spitting me back up

on a cold beach, beat, broken
and suffering again
from that same lack
of sleep and
your essential nutrients

Written by [hannes]

Sometimes, you just can't be saved,
And their pain can't be erased,
Just because you feel sorry.
It's not enough.
Sometimes, you know you're wrong,
Yet you can't stop,
Or take it back.
Sometimes you don't want to,
Even as the guilt consumes you,
You find a reason to call yourself right.
It's not enough,
To say you're sorry.
It's not enough,
To admit you're wrong.
Sometimes, you just can't be saved.

Written by [MyAlterEgo]