Don’t need, you will push the world away.
You are allowed to love others, in whatever form that manifests from your robotic heart.
They are allowed to love you back, if it suits them.
As long as it’s convenient.
But do not truly need, or you will push them away.
You can stand beside others in this life, but you must be capable of making it alone.
You must accept that you approve of this existence, this life sentence.
If you do not accept, you must choose something else, somehow.
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If you are human, then you are allowed to love and be loved.
If you are human, you are allowed to need.
Humans are soft and hard-edged. You have these edges too. A soft body, a sharp mind.
You have set many layers of padlocks and security protocols on your untouchable heart.
You have researched, so you know love is not to be earned. Yet you still feel you must earn it.
Quietly, in your own heart, just for good measure.
As if one day, the people you have allowed to love you will ask for written proof of why their efforts were not wasted, and you will be ready.
You will be ready.
Yet the harder you work to accrue and to document this proof, you find you are surrounded by reams of blank paper. Tangible yet meaningless, and still the fear remains.
You know the ones you have allowed to love you will not ask for this. And even if they do, these mountains of blank sheets will not be enough.
Enough for them, perhaps, but never for you.
Whose love, then, are you trying to earn?
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A/N: Felt like ruminating. Logical and creative performance-based personality types like mine constantly run afoul with this labyrinthine question of loving and being loved. Have to take it in baby steps one day at a time.
Odonata 