Ridpath's speaker is hurting because someone close never seems to notice them, even when they're standing right there. The poem opens with a blunt question, almost like a confession blurted out, and the short, rhyming lines keep that raw, slightly breathless feel.
What makes it interesting is the speaker's guilt. They admit they shouldn't be "so self-serving," yet they still feel they deserve attention. They call these thoughts ideas that "need curbing" and say they're learning every day, as if they're trying to talk themselves out of the feeling. But it doesn't work. The line "It never stops the yearning" shows that reason can't switch off longing.
The mood is quiet, sad, and a little worn down. The rhymes (though/know, curbing/learning/yearning) feel almost like a chant the speaker repeats to cope. The odd closing line, "It's crippling, oh," reads like a sigh, ending on exhausted honesty rather than a neat solution.