wanting - yearning - hoping** (and all other such things)

"For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion...

and a man no longer believes he is a man..."

A girl wants to be chosen.

By "chosen" one doesn't mean the boy runs into the fruit store and grabs the last apple left in the box. Sure, he's been wanting one all day, and sure, it may satisfy his craving, despite it's bruises, mouldy stem and strange shape. The apple, if it is the only apple in the box, will be chosen by anyone who wants it desperately.

But desperation was never a good condition to make one's choices.

Missy Higgins captured sentiment perfectly when she sang "scar" -

"Coz I'm a little bit tired of feeling that I'll be the bad fruit nobody buys..."

No... A girl wants to be chosen - not because she's the only one left to choose. Not even because she's the one there to choose... She wants to know that he chose her above all the rest.

She wants to know that he ran into Duffy Bros, knowing he wanted the perfect, luscious, sweet and tantilising fruit to tend to his desires... and despite the tens and hundreds of fruit that surround him, despite their better shape, colour, or taste, despite the fact that this one is a bit bruised, a bit oddly-shaped... or even if a piece is missing... he'd see it, pick it up, maybe have a whiff of its pleasant aroma... look back at all the other, perhaps even better fruit that he might have picked... and still know this was the one for him.

She wants to know that despite all the other books on the shelf, despite their bright designs, their thick chapters, their inviting pictures... he is captivated by her story. Despite her torn pages, stained sheets and dull, funny-coloured front cover, he picked up hers. She wants to know that even though some pages were empty, or ripped from shame... it was this thin, ordinary-looking book that he chose to pick up, brush the dust off and spend hours of his day staring into.

A girl wants to be chosen.