The first love
is never really a person—
it is a season,
a breath,
a trembling in the chest
that doesn’t know how to be quiet.
It arrives shyly,
like spring trying to hide behind winter,
like light slipping under a closed door.
You don’t notice it at first.
Then suddenly,
everything in you
is reaching toward someone
who does not know
they are being reached for.
You learn the shape of longing
by tracing it in silence.
You learn the weight of hope
by carrying what is never returned.
Their smile becomes a sunrise
you never touch.
Their voice becomes a song
that forgets your name.
And you—
you become a poet
without meaning to,
writing verses on the inside of your ribs,
lines that ache
but never speak themselves aloud.
First love is gentle.
Unrequited love is not.
Yet somehow
the two live in the same breath.
You look at them
and the world softens.
They look past you
and your heart learns
its first fracture.
No shattering,
just a quiet split—
like a flower opening
in the wrong direction.
You pretend it doesn’t hurt.
You pretend you’re fine.
But your chest knows the truth:
that loving someone alone
is a kind of bravery
you were never trained for.
Still, you keep their memory
folded like a paper secret
in the pocket of your years.
Because the first unrequited love
never really leaves—
it lingers like perfume
on a forgotten scarf,
like a sunset you never got to share,
like the echo of a dream
you wake up missing
without knowing why.
And though they walk away
without ever knowing
what they carried—
you remain,
holding the soft ache
of what almost was,
what could have been,
what your heart still remembers
in the quietest parts of you.
The first unrequited love
hurts—
but it also teaches.
It teaches you
that love can bloom
without being watered,
that hearts can bruise
without being touched,
that the most beautiful feelings
sometimes belong
only to the one
who feels them.
And that is why,
years later,
when you think of them,
it no longer stings—
it glows.
A small, sad,
beautiful light
that reminds you
your heart was brave once,
even when it broke
alone.
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