An Open Letter to First Love

I haven’t written you because it took me a long time to be able to think of you or hear your voice without feeling something.

Not something that left me with a long bar tab.

Not something that made me go berserk on a heavy bag or lay in bed all day.

It was something that made me miss the times we’ll never have again.

It was me opening our scrapbook without wanting to add pages or rearrange the memories.

Your insecurities didn’t bother me

Not the chubby cheeks, the chicken legs, or the frizzy hair

Or that you were a freshman when I was a senior.

I didn’t care about your sorry excuse for a family and friends who fed me nothing but smooth lies and fake smiles

What ate at eat me was that after all this time I can’t tell your truths from a lie.

It was looking back having no idea what was real and what was just you spinning a web of tales.

What bled me out was that you didn’t care when I hurt but I was there for all your sleepless nights, open wounds, and agonizing sobs.

Time and again I was editing myself

While you reluctantly kept your rough draft.

I came running in reckless abandon at your smoke signals while you didn’t flinch at my pleas,

“You’re killing me, you’re killing me,” I’d say after the whiskey pushed my truth out

But you wouldn’t take the hook out of your trophy fish.

Topping your stabs with empty promises about theme parks, UK flights, and blue labels.

I just wanted you to spare my hopes from the firing squad.

I think I iced over in Paris.

When I couldn’t wait to see you,

And like always you led me along only to send that nonchalant text canceling

Just like all the other times before,

Just tell me I meant nothing,

I could’ve jumped off the bridge with a smile,

But you ripped off the scab and poured whiskey on the wound for months instead,

And I fucked all the silver medals and buried myself in the sand.

Until I became numb from the bee stings and stopped feeling the salt on my bleeding heart.

I don’t regret you being my first love,

I just wish I had put out the fire that was me burning alive,

While you sat with your legs crossed sipping my gifted single barrel and watching the match burn.