I always heard that you never forget your first love

/

I always heard that you never forget your first love

because firsts have a special way of building

homes inside circulatory chambers, new space

where mortgages run-less for first time buyers.

I thought it was ridiculous, the excessive

sentimentality, only, now –

It is I that has left.

/

Swallow the window

and the bleeding sky

to ease the memory -

loss, is this what it means

to have a hole inside

of an empty house

more room for furniture,

I guess, more space,

a painting to hang on the wall of

captured memories, only now

I trace the edges of

the canvas

/

Lightning strikes down the

face of the weeping sky

windows see through,

memories of an empty house,

not swallowed, opened -

it happened so suddenly

news, a broken frame

pictures slipping -

two fragments, once whole

I got a storm in my throat, knots

of words worbling, thundering

waters down the face-garden

have I watered your garden?

will you still be home?

or will I come home

to the lights turned off

displaced memories,

scattered.

/

Can I trace your map

back to a place I called home

is home still home?

I don’t know.

/

They say you never forget your first love

those windy whispers of a forever promise

I always thought they were ridiculous

until I left-

my land

the soil in which I grew, the home we built where

my seed was watered by the blessed rain

and I realized,

you never really forget your first love.