They say you never forget about your first, and they’re right.

 

Even years later, your name lingers in my mouth, and just as it’s about to leave my mouth, I withdraw.

 

I still hold onto the memories of you and I riding down the tumbling path on our rusted bikes, the wind tousling with your hair, medallion eyes filled with the promise of a good future, your lips twitched up in a smile I could only see in my dreams has now approached me in real life. 

 

Only for the illusion that you have given me to shatter in front of me.

 

A good year went to waste.

 

But despite all, I keep your image in my thoughts as a person who had love in their heart and hope for the future.

 

I still remember how you poured your words into drawings, the raw pain that each image held as your hand drifted across the page, creating masterpieces that only you and I know of. How your face would be contracted in a peaceful smile, the dim light of your lamp reflecting off your window and wrapping itself around your face, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. We would sit in silence for hours, for there was no need for words to be exchanged when all we had was each other.

 

We were a secret that no one knew about,

The whispers of people who didn’t understand that love existed long before rules.

 

But we were the soldiers on the battlefield that can never be truly won. We walk through the remains of our brothers and sisters, unafraid of what is to come.

 

At least.

Were.

 

You held my heart with rough and scarred hands, and what began as soft “I love you’s” turned into a cold and distant person who only knew “goodbyes”.

 

Was it all a dream?

The glow of moonlight on your face as we sat in silence? The words that we exchanged in silence? A hand, enveloped in mine, squeezing it tightly as we stared into the window of our souls?

It’s so much easier to say that it was.

 

I may only be a thought that crosses your mind once now.

But memories of you flood me when I least expect it, leaving me hollowed out and afraid. 

 

We were taught that love was simple,

But the cruel reality is that love seizes you in so many different ways, like how their eyes light up like fireworks when they ramble aimlessly about their day, or maybe how their smile always held secrets that you would only get to know if you got close enough, so you did, and just like Icarus, you decide to risk it all just to see how the sun really feels like, but before you know it you are falling, falling, until you hit the ground and your heart breaks into a million pieces that are too out of reach so you just lay there, waiting, hoping that someone will pick those pieces up and decide that you are worth their time so they stay and stitch your heart as best as they can.

It is whether they choose to drop it and leave or hold onto it forever which is really frighting.

You give someone complete power over you, and that is when you will truly be able to see who really loves you.

 

But it all comes down to you,

I was Icarus.

You were my sun.

 

I let you see all the vulnerable parts of me as a person and you snatched them up, 

Then left,

Like a robber, 

Taking what wasn’t supposed to be yours.

 

I was never meant to be yours.

But back then the world was still bright and I was a naive fool who let all of this really mean something.

 

Truth is,

We were doomed at the start.

 

But that’s okay.

 

I say that it’s okay because I guess it all comes down to thanks. 

 

Thanks,

For teaching me the rules of love,

And preparing me for the worst if it ever comes down to another messy breakup again.

 

-From, a lover who is just another ghost in the album of your heart