First Love

One imagines, one believes, that in days past
when one couldn't live without the other,
that the love was spontaneous, unrehearsed;
honest, unschooled by hurts;
awkward, hence unfeigned; 
pure.

One remembers ideal love
(or imagined it to have been thus
before second thoughts came along):
That the terrain was uncharted,
pristine, wild, beautiful, perilous;
so that one marveled and feared,
as wonders and horrors from either's mind
took colossal strides that shook your worlds;
one held fast to one's own mutually vulnerable other,
in turn was held close in pain or pleasure;
one's collateral was one's own heart,
one held nothing back

When one meets one's first other,
one mumbles mundane weather updates;
yet one imagines, one quietly fancies,
wishfully, unjustifiably,
that one knew the other perfectly
first loved and was loved 
as none other ever will

Because when that perfect chapter ended
both devoted the rest of their lives
to protecting themselves
from losing it again
by never finding it

(Or so one dreams.)