I Fear the Pain of Wanting (A poem)

Sometimes I want,
Want so hard I fear it will break me in two.
What I want hurts inside, not because
I can’t have it … but,
Because the wanting,
Waiting, anticipating fills me up so full that I know I will burst.
I explode with the knowledge of it.
The pain is liquid fear,
Need rushing through me, pulsing, crushing
Flooding into all that I know to be true.

Sometimes when I know, with certainty,
I just know that I cannot have what I want,
I fear the pain of wanting.
The empty place inside so full of longing.
I fear it because a longing that deep, that clear,
Will only hurt.
Hurt for so long that what I know, what is goodness and truth,
What will be there, with certainty continuously
Begins to take on a quality of something else.
Endless, my longing and my reality go on and on, intertwining.
Sometimes, when I think of what I want,
I hate myself.

Sometimes wanting is enough
To remind me that I am still alive.
But other times, wanting is enough to curl me up,
Curl me up into a tomb-like, cold, scary place
Where I am suffocated by my own
Wanting.

melody harrison hanson, june, 2007