The Wanted, always, envies the Needed,
regarding it bitterly
as the senior party between them.
It makes no secret of this fact:
How sweet a day must be,
it muses,
to bask in affections 
without ever glancing over shoulder,
having no cause to dread
the turn of the wheel;
how sweet to shed the shame 
of being marked a luxury.
Now, the Needed is more coy:
It fears not the ebbing of tides,
having settled well into a rhythmic life.
But, privately, the Needed longs, longs
for the thrill
of being a thing of covet.
There must be a certain grit 
forged in the disquietude, it imagines,
a hard-won self-respect that banishes
any doubts as to one’s caliber;
for the Wanted thing must fight
to hold its keep,
always jockeying to charm a fickle appetite. 
“I want you, but I don’t need you,” the voice informs me,
a way of saying: “The relationship may proceed, but
beneath
my hanging sword.”
It stings.
It stings.  And yet, I think,
not the more hideous configuration.

– Peter Cavallaro