All of the above.
This goes out to every person named MyFirst.
My first real love, first fear, or loss.
My first real lesson or understanding.
My first regret, first forgiveness.
This goes out to anyone who accidentally became at any point (or many points) all of the above, for any one person. You might know who you were, but you probably don't know who you are - or all of the things you became - and all of the places you've been in between.
Your name hides between pages in a duffel bag 27 notebooks thick. It can be found in ink covered sketchbooks full of pressed flowers. A diary with a lock, and a tiny key in a landfill somewhere. The only surviving yearbook.
It sat on a picnic table under a tree, making promises to the dead without your consent. It was made into mortar, and sealed youth-fired bricks into walls you never meant to build. Every time the sky turns black and the sidewalk smells like rain, you name both the window light, and the outside looking in; dripping wet.
You've been unexpectedly slammed into with the ring of a small-town bookshop bell and an inhale. A plastic cemetery vase stuck in the mud, and years of an extra carnation for a soldier named George. You've been the flash of a deserted phone booth that flew by the passenger side window on a road you've never been down.
This is for anyone who has been someone's first all of the above.
You get up in the morning and put your pants on one leg at a time. You push your shopping cart through the produce aisle and buy gum at the register and put gas in your car and maybe, sometimes, think of the person you know you used to be someone to.
You know you loved them. You did your best. You still hold special space for them, you hope they are well.
You don't know
You've shut people out of their life while brushing your teeth, and you've let people in to change it while deciding what to make for dinner.
My first love looks like my dad's yellow striped 70's shirt. It sounds like Jackson Browne and dial up internet. It feels like a missed bus home. A compass. Olympia Dukakis. It tastes like soft baked chocolate chip cookies and frozen lemonade. It smells like a lightning storm in a windowsill, and dried roses. Early mornings when all the doors are still locked. Old books. Street fairs at dusk. Pavement rain. A leather book bag. An attic diary on my birthday. That deserted phone booth.
My first love wasn't sweaty palms and stadium lights
or too much drool and the thrill of missing curfew
Although those things are their own firsts.
My first love was the ceramic pot I filled with damp rich hope and buried trust in.
My salvation was so green.
Your name has been carved into brick dust and whispered to shrinks. It's named hope and caution and fear and regret. It's the pop quiz failed but the degree twenty years later.
It's mostly a word for love; learned, mishandled, cherished.
This goes out to anyone who has ever been someone's all of the above. For everything and everywhere you've been without even knowing it.
My first real love, first fear, or loss.
My first real lesson or understanding.
My first regret, first forgiveness.
This goes out to anyone who accidentally became at any point (or many points) all of the above, for any one person. You might know who you were, but you probably don't know who you are - or all of the things you became - and all of the places you've been in between.
Your name hides between pages in a duffel bag 27 notebooks thick. It can be found in ink covered sketchbooks full of pressed flowers. A diary with a lock, and a tiny key in a landfill somewhere. The only surviving yearbook.
It sat on a picnic table under a tree, making promises to the dead without your consent. It was made into mortar, and sealed youth-fired bricks into walls you never meant to build. Every time the sky turns black and the sidewalk smells like rain, you name both the window light, and the outside looking in; dripping wet.
You've been unexpectedly slammed into with the ring of a small-town bookshop bell and an inhale. A plastic cemetery vase stuck in the mud, and years of an extra carnation for a soldier named George. You've been the flash of a deserted phone booth that flew by the passenger side window on a road you've never been down.
This is for anyone who has been someone's first all of the above.
You get up in the morning and put your pants on one leg at a time. You push your shopping cart through the produce aisle and buy gum at the register and put gas in your car and maybe, sometimes, think of the person you know you used to be someone to.
You know you loved them. You did your best. You still hold special space for them, you hope they are well.
You don't know
You've shut people out of their life while brushing your teeth, and you've let people in to change it while deciding what to make for dinner.
My first love looks like my dad's yellow striped 70's shirt. It sounds like Jackson Browne and dial up internet. It feels like a missed bus home. A compass. Olympia Dukakis. It tastes like soft baked chocolate chip cookies and frozen lemonade. It smells like a lightning storm in a windowsill, and dried roses. Early mornings when all the doors are still locked. Old books. Street fairs at dusk. Pavement rain. A leather book bag. An attic diary on my birthday. That deserted phone booth.
My first love wasn't sweaty palms and stadium lights
or too much drool and the thrill of missing curfew
Although those things are their own firsts.
My first love was the ceramic pot I filled with damp rich hope and buried trust in.
My salvation was so green.
Your name has been carved into brick dust and whispered to shrinks. It's named hope and caution and fear and regret. It's the pop quiz failed but the degree twenty years later.
It's mostly a word for love; learned, mishandled, cherished.
This goes out to anyone who has ever been someone's all of the above. For everything and everywhere you've been without even knowing it.