To want to be wanted is to stand as an empty vase on a windowsill, yearning for the weight of flowers to give you purpose. It is not that you are incomplete, but that you ache for someone to see the beauty in your emptiness and fill it with their presence. You stand there, day after day, the sunlight spilling over your curves, waiting for a hand to lift you, to make you whole. The world moves on, indifferent to your quiet plea, and still, you wait, hoping someone will notice the way you glisten when the light catches you just right.
This longing is a melody played on strings pulled too tight, a trembling note that aches in the marrow of your bones. It hums in your chest like an unanswered question, soft, insistent, relentless. A bird presses its fragile wings against the bars of your ribs, desperate for freedom but too afraid of what lies beyond the cage. To want to be wanted is to breathe in air that tastes of rain, each silence a storm cloud pregnant with unshed tears. The words you long to hear hover just out of reach, leaving you parched with hope and aching with the weight of all that remains unspoken.
It is to be a lighthouse standing lonely in the fog, casting your beacon into the emptiness. You do not shine for glory; you shine because you need to. Your light burns with the hope that someone, somewhere, will see you and understand that you are more than just a distant glow. But the sea stretches endlessly, and the waves whisper promises they never intend to keep. Ships drift by, never slowing, and still, you shine because the hope of being seen is what keeps you alive. One day, you tell yourself, someone will lift their gaze and say, “I see you. I’m coming home.”
To want to be wanted is to be a garden aching for footsteps, the soil heavy with dreams. The flowers bloom not just for themselves, but in the fragile hope that someone will pause, bend down, and breathe in their fragrance. Their petals tremble with anticipation, desperate for hands that will cherish their beauty. Yet seasons pass, and only the wind bears witness to their quiet perseverance. Still, the garden grows because even in loneliness, there is courage. To exist, even when unseen, is its own act of defiance.
This longing is both a fire and a shadow. The fire warms you with the dream of being held, of hearing the soft murmur of a voice that says, “You matter.” But the shadow lingers, reminding you of every moment you felt invisible. It is a mirror reflecting what you might become in someone else’s eyes. whole, cherished, worthy. Yet the mirror also asks, “Are you enough as you are?” And in the stillness, the ache twists deeper.
Yet, perhaps to want to be wanted is to be beautifully, achingly human. It is the thread that binds us. a fragile, unspoken connection that stretches across every lonely heart. We are all, in some way, lighthouses, vases, gardens. beings that long to be seen, valued, chosen. There is a tender, bittersweet beauty in that shared yearning, a reminder that even in our solitude, we are never truly alone. To want to be wanted is not a weakness. It is the essence of hope, of reaching out despite the risk. And in that, even the emptiness holds a grace that cannot be denied.