What I Want: Why I Wrote the Song That Wrote Me

I wrote “What I Want” because I found myself caught between a rock and the rawest desire I’d ever known.

My friends were raising eyebrows. My family was waving red flags. The verdict was unanimous: This man is not it. But everything in me whispered otherwise. It wasn’t logic—it was longing. And for the first time in my adult life, I let myself follow the feeling.

I’d never truly been in love as a grown woman. My first taste of love was in high school—young, full, and untouchable. Until it wasn’t. My boyfriend was murdered by his best friend. That loss sent me spiraling. After that, something in me locked up. I became the girl who loved deeply, but quietly decided she might never feel that way again.

And then came another loss: my father.

When he passed, my entire foundation shifted. I became my own protector, provider, and peacekeeper. The last person who made me feel completely safe was gone. So I built a life around not needing anyone. I stopped expecting that kind of love. Maybe I even stopped believing in it.

And that’s exactly when he showed up.

I wasn’t looking. I wasn’t open. I wasn’t even nice. I was minding my business, tunnel-visioned on work, focused on staying in control. When we met, I was rude—deliberately so. But he didn’t flinch. He saw something in me and stayed. What started as a few curious conversations turned into a full-blown emotional storm.

He didn’t just stir something in me—he unleashed something. He became a mirror. He made me feel emotions I thought I buried with my past. He cracked open grief I didn’t even know I was avoiding. He forced me to sit in the uncomfortability of truth, to look at my patterns, to face my reflex to run.

And here's the plot twist: I don’t regret any of it. Not a single breath, kiss, tear, or tremble.

People love to say, “If I could go back, I’d do it differently.” Not me.If I could go back, I’d do it all again... EVERY MISTAKE, the same exact way.

I’d choose the fire over the fantasy. I’d pick the fear and the freedom over the fake security. I’d run toward that wild love with my whole body. And that’s what this song is. What I Want is my confession and my liberation. It's me saying out loud that maybe choosing him—choosing the experience—was actually choosing me.

I know the ballads that say, “I left and found myself.” And I get it. That’s real. But my truth is: sometimes, leaning into the chaos is the real act of self-love. Sometimes surrendering to the experience, even when it breaks the rules, is what cracks your heart open wide enough for healing to begin.

What I Want is for the girls who aren’t scared to want. For the courageous. For the women who are tired of playing it safe. For anyone who’s ever chosen the path that didn’t make sense but made you feel something again.

I didn’t write this song to be perfect. I wrote it to be true.

—TEÓNA