ORIGIN: One of the props was a mouse. If you take a closer look at its ear, you will see the suggestion of a girl whispering in its ear. Her dress fades into the mouse’s blush, and somehow we found ourselves reminiscing about our first love.
You are not wrong. Life is a succession of choices, and I am still haunted by my first love. That’s my choice. I could burn all the letters he sealed with a heart. I could feed them to the fire and allow myself to rise from the ashes. But I don’t see the point in moving on. In this day and age, he took the time to write them for me. He carefully chose words I would like to read, and he didn’t misspell a single one of them. I read forever between the lines, not the passing flutter of a butterfly. And I can’t bring myself to settle for luv or <3.
My first love ended in tears. But even if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t change a thing. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t feel like a bird. Perched on a branch. Just there, waiting to be wooed. With colorful flowers and sweet chocolates. I was the one that made the chocolate from scratch. Black. Bitter. Because I was afraid I already knew the answer. But I mustered my courage. I laid myself open to rejection. And he was kind. So, so very kind. That’s why I will always cherish that bittersweet one-sided love. Because no one expects birds to be kind. And when my tears dried, and I went back to being a bird, the word love was gone from my vocabulary. For good.
On the last day of school, my first love gave me a button. The closest to his heart. Something to remember him by. It was goodbye. But I said those words through a smile. There was no heartbreak. Only tears of gratitude in my eyes. It was time to wake up and grow up. Disappointment was waiting for me on the other side of those gates. And I am glad that it didn’t wear his face. My first love was a dream. To the very end.
I remember chalking love on a blackboard. Between chimes. His name. My name. I remember a whole future that never was. Now I know that I should have been paying attention to the past, not to my beating heart. Numbers. Words. Things others had come up with, that would have been a better foundation to build my future on. Back then I didn’t know that I was holding a piece of the ocean between my fingers. All I heard was my heart. Our love. Painted in white chalk. My naivety for all to see. And I just wish someone had taught me to put the pieces back together. I just wish there had been a seashell I could have listened to. To help me see beyond that first love. The life that was waiting for me.
Something is missing. Nothing compares. I had my first love, but it’s in a category of its own. No other love has managed to replicate the wonder and the fear, the dreams and the anticipation I felt, back then, when I had just started naming the things that one day would make up my world. I used to ride on the back of his bicycle. I would hug him tight, close my eyes, and feel my horizons expanding. There was love in the air. But it wasn’t just that. Every day held so much promise that I could have drowned in the sunset. But the stars bubbled up. Up. Up. And that magical moment in time went on. Yellow. Red. I used to close my eyes at night, and those colors were still there. Love floating on wonder. A cherry on top. That’s what my first love was. But that moment is long gone. All the bubbles burst, and no bicycle has brought me so close to the horizon again.
There are more fish in the sea. I have heard those words before, and I don’t need to hear them again. I am not hung up on my first love. I am not prone to embellishing. Something that never was doesn’t haunt my every waking hour. But fish multiply, and goose bumps break out on my skin every time someone repeats those words to me. It’s like hearing a ghost story with no end in sight. One that only gets scarier with each passing heartbeat. The best part of my first love was the fact that it was the first. There were things that I liked and things that I disliked, but I could still count them on the fingers of one hand. I haven’t had a change of heart. I still like what I like. But love still finds new ways to hurt and disappoint me.
Should I lie? Should I tell you that there is no difference at all? That it’s the thought that counts, and a playlist is just as good as a mix tape? I am sorry, but I can’t. Call me old-fashioned, but my first love wasn’t perfect. He cared. And I can’t lie. It’s not about the music. That’s the destination, and I was taught that the most important thing is the journey. My first love called the radio and requested songs for me. He waited, with bated breath, until they came on and he could record them. Some parts were missing, and the quality of the sound wasn’t the best. But I could tell that he cared. And tapping a screen simply isn’t the same. Not even if you say that you love me and you do it to the rhythm of your beating heart.
My first love kissed me at the top of a Ferris Wheel. It’s not you, it’s me. I was a child back then. There were stars in my eyes, outshining even the most obnoxious neon lights. I knew the definition of love by heart, and my stars wouldn’t let anything or anyone spoil it for me. I got my kiss. It was everything I dreamed it would be. And then I just grew up. I woke up. Because dreams don’t deserve to rot in anyone’s heart. Now love is just a word. It doesn’t mean anything. And that will never be your fault. It’s just that the stars fell from my eyes and now I see those neon lights for what they are, and they were never the reason I rode that Ferris Wheel.