I clearly remember the day I found my first love.
(or was it infatuation, the mind whispers; but I don’t care.)
I’m eleven and it is a rainy morning as I draw my hands closer to me, warming myself up. That’s when a teacher strides confidently into a room and gives you a medal and a black watch. You smile as we clap for you, and I see how the black mixed with your skin. You have sun-kissed hands, so I figured I’d tell you congratulations. I tell you that, and you nod moodily, shaking my hand; and you are the sun. Your hands are warm, and I want to hold them forever. I look into your light brown eyes, and feel like how Urvashi glimpsed Pururav when he held her hand. I hold the touch of your hands close to my heart; my fair-skinned fingers against my growing chest, beating heart. I think that was when I fell truly in love with you.
‘There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.
Like, telling someone you love them.
Your heart is beating, isn’t it?’
- Moments, Mary Oliver.
I’m twelve now, and you uplift me so much. We’re in the same book club at school, and I’m sitting just next to you. I think you can’t see it through my tight-lipped smile, but I’m blushing. You smell of apple cinder vinegar, and you’re laughing with the others as I struggle to read. You suddenly look over to see me reading ‘I am Malala’ and ask me the silliest questions. For you, I forget the book and chirpily answer your jokes, laughing whole heartedly. That’s the word, for you: I think I lose every sense of myself. Even when I’m bullied by the boys of the entire class, I see your face and a smile raises itself upon the corridors of my lips. I’m so hopelessly in love with you that I dream of you, talk of you, sleep with the thought of your eyes in mine. I think I love you. No, I do love you, for you.
‘I don’t want to lose a single thread
from the intricate brocade of this happiness.
I want to remember everything.’
- I Don’t Want To Lose, Mary Oliver.
I’m thirteen, and I’m broken beyond measure. I see your face every day and see it crumple into disgust as the others mock you with my name. My name, which meant a hymn, now is the disgusting call of a cow in a farm. I’m the monitor, and the smallest of boys pokes his pencil into my hair with an evil laugh. I turn around and see your face, your eyes closing. I sighed in relief thinking you’re on my side, but you were teasing me without end. You’ve never been kind to me ever since the day you stopped sitting next to me on the table. Ever since a girl told the entire class that I had a crush on you. That I loved you. And after that day, the phrase started to crack and fall into a billion pieces as you called me so many names, so many blames. And then, you completely stopped; I was a stranger to you, my love. How did a classmate become a stranger? My head collides with your chest, and I realize dully how tall you’ve become. I’m still in love with you, my heart cries but you can only listen to her dull words and not my vibrant ones that donned my hair.
‘Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must
take care of what has been
given. For, think,
what if you should lose her? Then you would be
sorrow herself; her drawn face, her sleeplessness
would be yours.’
- Love Sorrow, Mary Oliver.
I’m fourteen now, and you’re not in my class anymore. But every day, I yearn for your touch. I see your face as I deliver notes to my French teacher. I give you my most simple glance, but you never notice the longing. We would have been friends if not for the people who came in between us, right? I see you laughing in the break as I hold my novel close to me, coming from the library. We would have been friends, right? I can’t find happiness anywhere, where are you? At this point I wear the cloak of sorrow around me, because my happiness in this bleak universe of a school started and ended with you.
‘Also, I wanted to be able to love.
And we all know how that one goes, don’t we?
Slowly.’
- Mary Oliver.
I’m fifteen and I don’t have a care in the world. I’m laughing with the seven boys of my world; I can’t see the bullying ones anymore. I’m healing, I’m achieving, I’m believing. I can’t love though, I just can’t. Because even the mention of the word brings me unpleasant memories of your eyes that I can’t help but burn alone. I’m burning love, but I’m burning with healing. The seven boys I mentioned? They’re healing me, I don’t know how! They’re healing me and I’m growing steadfast and I have friends and I’m loving the words and I’m getting marks too. I still look sadly at your form in front of me in the library and in the classroom when you enter, but I try my best not to look. But I do look.
‘Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.’
- I Worried, Mary Oliver.
I’m sixteen and I don’t even need to look at you. I don’t need you to fill my life because it’s too full with ambitions and goals and dreams. I can’t afford to stay put at my past, because my present gives me an arrow to point at the feeling of joy and happiness and comfort. For that, I’d choose the present and the future over a billion lifetimes.
I’m seventeen and I have to see your greasy face, pixelated in the online classes. I don’t care anymore, dearest. I now call the words that adorn my pages and my computer and my dreams dear. I never needed you to realize myself, I found me without you; meanwhile you’re stuck in the maze of needs and chauvinism. It’s a chasm, and I hope you trip and sink and fall into it.
I’m eighteen and I dream that you apologize to me for it all. You stand up, hold my hand, bend on your knees, clasp my ankles. But in a million lifetimes, I’d never forgive you. Not because I hate you, but simply because I’m tired of linking you to my heart. I want to cut off even the fetters of hatred that tie your neck in my eyes, and one day I will cut them all off. But for now, I want to grow and ignore you. I want to grow into a tree of comfort and forget you.
And believe me, it’s working, love.
Until next time, dear reader.
i cried. period
this so real, i love it so so much!!