happy one year

​october 20th, 2018

happy one year anniversary
i whisper quietly to my first breakup. i’d say heartbreak but it’s not that i’m mourning anymore. it’s one year ago today that i went through one of the hardest times in my teenage years. and after so many months and writing prompts, i’m tired of talking about the hurting.

i do mourn the first time i ever felt true, requited love. and when we broke up, i first started to write poetry just to cope. it’s my outlet now, but i will say the beginnings—its humble roots—are not my favorite part to tell. how can the one year anniversary of one of the best decisions of my life also fall on the same month my teenage world fell apart? why must the breaking be a catalyst? i guess i do have some things to say about it all, still, after so many months.

the boy loved me and it was simple and ever-present and i will never forget how he made me feel. he was a nice boy with the best intentions and i was a naive girl who never knew what she wanted. we weren’t perfect, but we weren’t too bad either.

he was my first love.
i was his middle girl.
it was unfair from the start, i suppose.

but it was young love and it was first love and it was something i could never get back. i took it for granted. like when you grow up and you realize that at some point, you and your friends went out to play for the last time without knowing. it’s like that. i was never aware the last kiss or phone call or piece of tangible love would be the last. it all happens without the knowing.

the rehashing.
i would never have been able to write like this a year ago; i was all hurt and anger and revenge.

since then, i’ve been in several flings. nothing ever real. nothing ever coming close to what we had. it’s not that i want to stay single at this point; i’m just too tired to start over. too tired to try at love again and fail.

to my first love—to any of my future loves. if you ever read this--
thank you for treating me how you did; loving me how you did. you didn’t set the bar too low; you were the best person to ever break my heart. i wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

this world has existed for thousands and millions of years and for some odd reason, we were able to exist in the same space at the same time, living off of dust from old ancestors and creating more for future first loves to meet on. you remind me that it counts for something.

-jess

​jessica ison 

she/her/hers
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​my poet’s note: it took some vulnerability submitting this piece. my first love, to be frank, has a god complex and i figured that i would never want him to know that i wrote this piece about him. but, if it helps me, i suppose i have to forget what any other person will say about it. if i am proud of this work, then that’s the end of the conversation. and i figure his ego might blow up once he finds this out, and i’m okay with that. i am very grateful for him. i learned that there is a difference between being appreciative and grateful for something, and wanting that thing back. they do not go hand in hand. i am very grateful he was my catalyst, but i’m okay not getting it back. i grew from the shadows of heartbreak; i am the light.