My first loves were secret. Taking multiple forms, crying when I had to say goodbye to a friend, playing games where we had to hide close to each other, our skins barely touching. Experimental for them, wondering what it was to touch another body, kiss someone, then forget while something was aching inside my heart.
First loves couldn’t be defined by words yet, but I knew I had to keep those feelings secret. It was also trying to fake things, picturing what life would be with a girlfriend, a wife, while my eyes kept glancing at boys. It was forming bonds with close friends they suddenly broke, calling our games, our nicknames, our sacred times, childish and foolish.
First loves were solitude, this feeling of loneliness, searching for words to exist in this world, anything that could explain those things I felt inside of me but couldn’t define. While my friends were feeling butterflies, mine were moths eating my light away, leaving me in a dark pit, wondering if I would one day be loved by those who always went away for normality.
First loves left unhealed wounds, lessons I’d rather not have learn, and a thick skin around my heart I had to learn to open again.
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