Weeds
 
Needs must and so they do.
Without hesitation or regret.
Maslow at least got that right.

Love is not a need per se.
The need for love (real or imagined)
is the need. Like hunger or thirst.

Flowers are beautiful. Most flowers.
Weeds (in the eyes of some) are not.
The difference boils down to neediness.

And it’s the same with love.
The need for love (and to be loved)
can, and often does, choke love to death

because needs have wants too
and the last thing any need wants (deep down)
is to be met.

 

 

Jim Murdoch has been writing poetry for fifty years and has graced the pages of many now-defunct magazines and a few, like Ink Sweat & Tears, The Lake and Eclectica, that are still hanging on in there. For ten years he ran the literary blog The Truth About Lies but now lives in relative obscurity in Scotland with his wife and (increasingly) next door’s cat. He has published two books of poetry, a short story collection and four novels.