Every part of me

Perhaps I Was Longing Too

Maybe I see sadness in people
Because I know what it looks like.

I know the eyes of someone
Who is longing for a person
who will never choose them.

I know the quiet ache
of wanting to be noticed
without having to say,
Please notice me.

So when I find someone like that,
I love them.

I become the person
I have always wanted to find me.

I notice.
I choose.
I stay beside them
When they are difficult to hold.

I give them words
I have spent my whole life
wanting to hear.

I see you.
I know you're hurting.
You don't have to hide it from me.
I am here.
I choose you.

And maybe that is why
I have loved so many people.

Maybe every person I tried to save
was carrying a sadness
that looked a little like mine.

Maybe I wasn't only loving them.

Maybe, through them,
I was loving the part of myself
that was still waiting
for someone to come looking.

Because the truth is,
I have always been the rescuer.

I find the lonely ones.
I hold the abandoned ones.
I choose the ones
who were not chosen.

And when they are happy again,
when their eyes become lighter
and they no longer need my hands
to hold their broken pieces together,

I leave.

I tell myself
they don't need me anymore.

And I go looking
for another wounded heart
that speaks the same language as mine.

But naybe all this time,
Beneath every person I tried to save,
there was a quiet hope:

that one day
someone would look at me
the way I look at them.

That someone would notice
the sadness I never speak about.

That someone would see
the person who soends her life
saving everyone else
and ask,

Who saves you?

And maybe I don't need saving.

Maybe I just want,
for once,
to be seen
before I have to ask.

To be chosen
before I have to earn it.

To be loved
not because I am useful,
not because I can heal someone,
not because somebody needs me---

but simply because
someone looked at me,
saw everythibg I have been hiding,

and stayed.