i wish we could go back to the first time we met

it was so long ago i can’t remember,

but i bet our knees were scabbed from sidewalks painted with pastel dreams that were born in our minds

and our eyes were still bright— untouched by the world we had yet to find

when we met for the first time, i think we said hello-

all shy smiles with crooked teeth and hair that was wind blown

you told me your name, and i told you mine—

and the eyes that would spend the rest of forever seeking each other met for the first time

we had an abundance of firsts, an infinite amount that would be impossible to count

our first pillow fort that took us hours to build and then collapsed after one mistake

at the time i was too young to know the irony of it, but

a single move is all it takes.

i fell in love with you for the first time when i was 10

when i was old enough to realize that we weren’t

(and we never had been)

just best friends—

because while we were never anything more or anything less

there was something unspoken in pockets of space between us that we were always too scared to address

you made me cry for the first time when i was 15

it was summer and you were here so time rewound and we were kids again—

popsicle juice dripping down faces, staining our hands green.

you unknowingly extended an olive branch to the raging battlefield that was my mind and it fell silent for the first time

and then you left because you had to go,

and we barely even said goodbye?

my tears were for the almosts, the could’ve beens and should’ve beens

all the things written in cursive in the sky when eyes met eyes and skin brushed skin

i have loved you since the first of our first times, i think, in more ways than there are stars,

i have loved you so deeply for so long that it has eaten away the part of me that does not know how to love you so it does not exist.

i don’t know what we are, i just know it’s not nothing yet not something either—

it’s a start.

at the beginning you shouldn’t see the end, but i have so much love to give and so much to lose that an end is inevitable like an earthquake coming to shatter my glass heart