First Love

We were all of 17 then, me a few months older

In the midst of an Accounting problem, I turned to my friend,

To share a laugh and a giggle,

When I saw you, sitting in an adjacent desk

Talking to your friend, turning my way.

I didn’t know the heart could feel so many different things

Until then, when my eyes found you.

I gaped unabashedly, shielded partly by my friend

Is this what love at first sight was?

I didn’t know, I couldn’t think.

Nor could I eat, sleep and drink

since then. Was it love, or was it an obsession?

I was consumed by all things you.

Since that moment, I existed solely for you

My eyes searched for you everytime, in class

At the traffic signal, in supermarkets,

Hoping against hope, the universe would

Conspire to bring us together.

My imagination ran wild – dreaming up an apocalypse in which,

Everybody but you and me perished

But despite all this, I never approached you

Never went up to you and said ‘Hi’,

Never sent feverish love letters sprayed with fragrance.

And with end of classes, you moved on

Having never known what I felt

While I lived only in my dreams, where I would courageously

Jump down rooftops to be with you, in the mystery of the night.

Years later – after we each found our respective loves

You still existed in my life, as a tender memory

Of an unattainable dream, an unrequited love,

And perhaps that is for the better,

for if you and I had come together, sourness

would have wormed its way,

normalizing us; and who wants normal?

I am content of dreaming of a what could be,

And this is my happily ever after.