Denial of Need

Need:

the 4-letter word

of my youth.

To ask

for anything

from those who

were supposed

to care for me,

was to be seen,

to expose myself,

not only to rejection,

but to the

denial of need,

sometimes in the

harshest of ways.

Was there anything

more painful,

more shameful

than needing

love, care, food,

support from those

unwilling or unable

to give it?

Of having that

hope crushed

again and again?

So I shoved it down,

figured it out,

found my way.

And when

the starvation

of need

became so

apparent,

that even

they saw it,

deny it.

Deny it.

Because somehow

in that reality, in that

world of theirs,

the deprived

become the

comforters,

my child self

assuring them

that I had no

need.

So bereft

of attention

that those

few moments

of watching them cry,

murmuring that I

understood,

telling them that I didn't need,

that it was no big deal;

at least those few

moments

meant being

noticed

for a time.

And worse, to then

in my child mind,

take those

moments as evidence

that they did care, that

their tears were a reason to

push down my need even

further.

After all, I don’t want to make them feel bad.

Those moments,

elusive and short-lived,

leaving me even more alone

each time, sealing in the barren spaces.

Taking their denial

of my need

onto, into myself.

Now I look

back at the long

road of my life,

the twisting journey

of adulthood.

And I see it.

The denial of need,

still there,

now self-imposed.

The one-sided

relationships,

the self-loathing and

self-abuse,

the sacrifices made

on the altar of my

career.

The pushing, striving

going further

than anyone else.

Because I was

'committed',

'driven', a 'hard worker'.

But in new light,

it was the

denial of need

showing up

again and again.

I have continued to

wound myself,

not by having needs,

but by

denying them.

By sorting through

this mess, opening

my eyes to the past,

sitting with pain

day by day,

the dark root of

the shame that

has haunted me

all my life,

begins to reveal

itself in the

denial of need.