Wanted — Summary

They all want something Most of the time it's not you They want you to be somebody You're not Your parents Your friends They all want something different You box up you Pretty soon you haven't opened it They all some version of you You give them what they want But what about what you want So you find somebody Somebody you can trust You give them a peek of you And they run away They run away so far You don't even know who they are You bury yourself deep You get restless and tired again You look for somebody This time you hit the jackpot.

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Everyone in this poem wants something from the speaker, and it's rarely the speaker's real self. Parents and friends each expect a different person, so the speaker folds themselves up to match, boxing up the "you" underneath until they've stopped even opening the box. It's a tiring way to live: handing out whatever version people ask for while nobody asks what the speaker wants.

Then comes a risk. The speaker finds someone trustworthy and offers "a peek" of the real self, and that person runs, so far the speaker no longer knows who they were. The reaction is to bury themselves deeper. The short, flat lines make the hurt feel numb rather than dramatic.

The ending turns on a small hope. Restlessness pushes the speaker to try again, and this time they "hit the jackpot." The poem doesn't say how, which leaves the mood cautious but quietly optimistic: lonely and guarded for most of it, then, at the last moment, open to being known.

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