Verse
I don’t need to be held
I know what hands do when they shake
I don’t need to be chosen
I’ve seen how quickly choice decays
I don’t need a voice to call me home
I built walls out of my name
I don’t need love to tell me I exist
I’ve bled enough to stay
Pre-Chorus
Some wounds don’t want comfort
They want distance
They want air
Chorus
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be left intact
I don’t need a heart that opens
Just to ask for itself back
If your love needs me smaller
Needs me quiet, needs me less
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be whole
And that’s it
Verse
I don’t need to be seen
I know what eyes take inventory
I don’t need forever spoken
By someone scared of longevity
I’ve been adored like a surface
Touched but never kept
Every “stay” was temporary
Every promise slept
Pre-Chorus
I don’t mistrust the feeling
I mistrust the exit
Built inside it
Chorus
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be left intact
I don’t need a heart that opens
Just to ask for itself back
If your love needs me smaller
Needs me quiet, needs me less
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be whole
And that’s it
that’s it
And that’s it
Bridge
There are things love never asks about
The nights you survive
The parts of you that don’t perform
The will to stay alive
If loving me costs comfort
If it costs the lie
Don’t dress your fear up as fate
And call it goodbye
Break
I didn’t give up on love
I just stopped begging it
To tell the truth
Final Chorus
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be left intact
I don’t need a heart that opens
Just to ask for itself back
If your love needs me smaller
Needs me quiet, needs me les
I don’t need to be loved
I need to stay
Who I am
(Who I am)
Who I am
I don’t need to be loved
I need to be whole
And that’s it