The First Time

People always tell you that the first time of anything is something you will remember for the rest of your life. Another one, if you're going to do something, do it right the first time. The latter is ironic really. How do you do something correct when you have never done it before? Of course, if you had a manual, a tutorial, a guide, everything will work out in your favour if you follow...

---

It never goes away like the stained pigment of the flower you crushed beneath the soles of your worn feet. The path you had set on was non like the other. A fresh start you had promised yourself with a smile only you knew was a disappointment away from a ugly frown. This time, maybe, it would work out. The opportunity fresh like the new moon, its surface polished, bright seemingly an arm's reach away. What if it's real? You question with the hopes and dreams of a million star-gazers wishing upon something they all seemed to have left to the universe or higher power. God? This is it! Is this it? It's almost scary how your soul seems consumed by this entity, craving the feeling it made you emit. Feelings you thought were only possible in the imagination of exaggerated writers with fantasies beyond reality. Questioning everything good, for you don't deserve this. You don't deserve to feel this good by anything, especially by solely one thing. But...what if it's real? What if you do deserve it. Let it consume you like the ashes consuming the air above the eruption. Let your excitement explode with euphoria. Feel it. Dream it! Live it and hope for the best. This is yours! The way you feel happy, it means that it must be yours.

Yet you still wonder...is this it? Have I found it. You stand in the field, the grass fresh beneath your naked, cracked feet, bruised and bloodied from the mountain you climbed burdened with false hopes. You are tired but the soft grass cushion your feet, coating your scarred skin with its rich dew fallen from the night's mist. It's there. The faded moon as the sun rises for a new dawn. If you run, you'll catch it, even when the last of your breath is to be taken, your mouth dry with the air scraping against your throat.

It's only a little further.

Don't take your eyes off it, though! So you've been told, you can't lose sight of it! It's yours! You must have it! No one else can.

Yet the more you reach, the further it gets until the sun rises fully and moon seems to hide behind the light. You fall to your knees, spreading the petals of the yellow tulips to break your fall. You pull at the grass, it slowed you down! Perhaps the sun was too hot, melting your skin from your pounding head to your brittle toe. What if it wasn't real? All those trampled flowers that once cradled each step, broken for no reason. So you give it a reason, laying down on your back cursing the hot sun for ridding your moon. The sun, refusing to shed a tear, shines even brighter, forcing you to close your eyes. It covers your body in its warm embrace, embedding every inch of skin with it's hot kisses, it makes you feel...elated. The trees smile down at you realising how in love the sun is with you. You smile back, stretching your hands to reach the star, holding your hand too as it lines your fingers with its golden rays. The day doesn't want to end, when the sun waves to the west, crying with its pretty blues, tinting its cheeks a rose pink. You wait for the moon, all night with the chirping of the crickets; with the rustling of the gentle winds that cradled the leaves off the trees; to the wake of the chirping birds at the peak of the first light. The sun smiles, with the warmth of it golden glow. Its warm fingered rays glisten over the stream of bodied water flowing from the banks of your eyes.

You sigh, expelling a long heavy breath. Your once hopefully smile a sunburned, cracked, bloodied frown. You stand to see where the earth had encased your body, the grass no longer greener, the insects swarming your desiccating agenda. You wished you had told to moon how badly you wanted it, how the curve of its smile made your heart pulse uncontrollably, how your hands trembled reaching out to touch it. You can no longer pretend, no matter how long you waited upon the moon to come to you with gathered tulips on your wait for its arrival. One again, the sun had gone.

A million and one star-gazers with hopes and dreams, wishing upon something they all left to the universe or a higher power, cursing the lies of a writer's imagination, so far from reality.

---