To My First Love

I still see you,

In stranger’s smiles

And lover’s eyes.

I still feel you,

In déjà vu,

And I love you.

I still taste you.

In long lost kisses

And Kung Pao Chicken.

How are you everywhere?

Like dreams,

Or the feeling of waking up,

Or the smell of dust after rain.

In laughter,

And bowling alleys,

In places I call home,

And sunsets.

In late night talks,

Cookies and crème,

Pinkie promises.

In the silhouettes of goodbye,

And in the newness of hello.

And in your mind is silence.

You do not worry about my existence,

Or how life is treating me.

You do not wonder about my mom or my brothers.

You do not even remember how to say my name,

The way it would fall from your mouth like a weight on your chest.

And that is okay.

And I understand now.

My heart has holes where you kept parts of me,

Like souvenirs of us.

Did you throw them away?

Or are they on your shelf?

Do you sometimes pull them out from

Under your bed with the framed letter I gave you

When we were young?

Do you sometimes cry

Knowing you can’t remember how to say I love you?

Knowing that you can no longer say “baby” and mean it?

We swore on meant to be,

Everything fell so perfectly,

We must be meant to be.

Like five years versus five days.

And the number of kids we wanted.

I told you who hurt me and how,

You promised that wouldn’t be you.

I finished your sentences,

I knew your stories before you opened your mouth,

I memorized your smile like it was my own.

Moments turned to hours,

Hours of hearing your voice.

I always loved your voice,

Like ocean sounds or rainforests or white noise,

But it was you.

It’s so silly and cliché how badly I miss you.

I know we weren’t meant to be

Regardless of how tightly we clung to it,

But I still think of you, always.

I see myself in 20 years,

Telling my daughter about you,

Explaining how “in love” and “soulmate”

Don’t belong to one particular person or event.

But that people become our soulmates for a season,

And how we were always meant to be for a time.

She will remember that when the first boy hurts her,

And when she’s tempted to give herself away.

You were my soulmate.

You not only taught me how to love,

But how to be loved.

And I still love you.

And that doesn’t hurt so bad anymore.