My First Love
Video was my first love
the soft snap of the DVD player
window closing
or the click of the VHS sliding through the portal
Back then even the ads were magic
Building anticipation
Like a sly magician’s assistant
all eyes and smile
And then the logos would start
the booming drums
or the sounds of stars falling
that I would parrot back to the immobile screen
It was like a ritual
And I didn’t know I was in love until I was crushed
and all I wanted to do was watch movies
Until
It kept me up at night with ideas for stories
and poems
and songs
that would just pour from me
Sometimes love is a generator
We grew up a little, and then she was cinema
soda pouring
and the swish of soft leather seats
leaning back
The sound of the story so loud sometimes
I could feel it in my chest
And every year she would be more magnificent
More colorful
A bigger and brighter show
Katniss wins
Romeo leaves Rosalind
Bucky finds safety
All the time
adrenaline coursing through me for every fight
serotonin and dopamine
dancing across my nerve endings
for every joke and kiss
When you’re a teenager you just feel everything bigger
I couldn’t imagine a world without a love like this
What is it even like for other people?
When I was fifteen
We’d been apart for a while
People change as they get older you know?
It was time to be serious
Time to play darts and pick a career
and you better pick wisely because after that
nothing can change
I closed my eyes to art and tried to think of something
that would make me money
make me rich
Because wealth is power and power is safety
and every parent wants their child to be better than them
I tried to make friends with old enemies
meditate on how I was going to be a normal member of society
But like a siren
my jilted lover kept calling out to me
When I was fifteen
I held a camera for the first time and knew
I would be with her forever
Atira C. © 2020. All rights reserved.
