More than any high

 
I was never worth the time—  
that’s what they taught me.  
With every goodbye spat like venom,  
with every hand that let go too soon,  
with every love that turned to rust.  
It became part of me,  
a truth carved into my bones:  
"You are worthless. Unsavable. Unlovable."  
I swallowed it like a pill,  
let it settle deep  
until I could barely tell  
where it ended and I began.  
 
Then you.  
You, with eyes full of things  
I could never deserve,  
watching me like I was something  
worth seeing, worth knowing,  
worth wanting.  
It scared the hell out of me.  
At first, I couldn’t look back,  
couldn’t meet the quiet wonder in your stare  
without feeling like a fraud.  
But you kept looking.  
Kept smiling.  
Kept staying.  
And I—God help me—  
I became addicted.  
 
More than coke,  
More than heroin,
More than fentanyl,
More than Xanax,
More than the air i need to breathe, and
more than anything I ever let burn through me,  
I crave the way you see me.  
Like I am more than the wreckage.  
Like I am more than the weight  
of all the times I was left behind.  
 
And that night—  
God, that night.  
You curled against me,  
wrapped yourself around my ruins  
like they didn’t scare you,  
like you didn’t care  
that I was made of shattered things.  
And as you breathed, soft and steady,  
lost in sleep against my chest,  
I forgot how to breathe at all.  
 
Because no one had ever stayed like that.  
No one had ever chosen me  
in the quiet, in the stillness,  
in the moments where I wasn’t trying  
to be something better.  
And now?  
Now I’ll never get enough.  
More than any high,  
more than any poison,  
more than anything I’ve ever chased,  
I am dependent on you.  
 
On your voice,  
on your touch,  
on the way your presence  
makes me feel like maybe,  
just maybe,  
I was wrong about myself.  
 
And now, I can only hope—  
against reason, against doubt—  
that if I can just figure out  
how the hell to say all of this  
without fucking it up,  
you might feel the same way too.