To Her First Love - Poem

“I love you.”

You will be the first one to tell her, and chances are high it will be said at random. It might even be over the phone, because you’re missing the one “month-aversery,” she planned. At that moment she will be waiting in her house, reapplying red to her lips and thinking about what 400-calorie entrée she deserves to order since she’s worked hard to fit into that dress.

She will hear your words and she will smile. She hasn’t heard them before. She hasn’t heard love before, she hasn’t known love before and she hasn’t believed in love before.

You will keep saying it and she will keep smiling and smiling and smiling and she will believe she will believe she will believe that you believe.

Then you will hang up.

You will hang up faster than you give your heart to her.

She will try to feel the words like her body tries to feel something from your hands when you are together.

On the night you tell her you love her she will hear the music behind you. She will hear the girls laughing and the clinking of glasses on the bar counter. She will hear the sound of people in love.

She pushed it out of her mind to replay your voice.

She forgot who you were.

Rather, what you were.

You didn’t know. You didn’t smile and you surely didn’t believe.

You are not a boyfriend. You are a boy.