I was fifteen. You were a year younger. Now decades later I still think of you. My heart aches at times to know what became of you. We were each others first love; the one a person never forgets. I hope you’re happy and as deeply cared for as you deserve. I still love you. R.Y.

Something about first love defies duplication.
Before it, your heart is blank. Unwritten.
After, the walls are left inscribed and graffitied.
When it ends, no amount of scrubbing
will purge the scrawled oaths and sketched images,
but sooner or later, you find that there’s space
for someone else, between the words and in the margins.
Tammara Webber