• February 6, 2026

“When First Love Becomes Forever”

We learned love
before we learned fear.
Barefoot promises,
shared lunches,
dreams scribbled in school notebooks
with no idea time could be cruel.

You were the boy
who knew my laughter
before it learned restraint.
The hand I reached for
without thinking.
The name my heart answered
long before my mind did.

They say you are gone.
But how does a life disappear
when it is stitched into mine?
Every corner of this world
still expects you—
your voice in the evening,
your breath beside sleep.

Grief came without warning,
like a door slammed by fate.
No goodbyes.
No slow learning.
Just silence where a lifetime
was meant to be.

I walk through our memories now,
touching them carefully,
afraid they might shatter
if I breathe too hard.
Childhood feels unfinished.
Love feels paused, not ended.

I am learning this terrible truth:
when you lose the one
who grew up with you,
you lose the witness to your becoming.
The only soul who remembers
who you were
before the world asked you to be strong.

Some days I talk to you in my head.
Some nights I cry into your name.
I carry you not in photographs,
but in reflexes—
the way I turn to share news,
the way joy still looks for you.

If healing comes,
it will not erase you.
It will learn to make space
for a love that ended too soon
but began too early
to ever truly leave.

You were my first home.
My longest story.
And though this life must go on,
every step I take
is still walking
with you.