Young Summer Love
More than a decade ago, during a surprisingly cool summer season, I fell in love with a boy. He was only vacationing with his relatives who were my compound neighbors. He sang, played the piano, and ate at our house. We played table tennis, rode bikes, and sat together for hours at the flagpole talking about the future. We laughed, teased each other, and secretly made fun of other people.
55 full days of that summer, we were together.
In 7 days, he was gonna fly back to his hometown. In 7 days, I was gonna feel lonely. Between the waiting and the looming sadness, he bought a local tattoo kit-- tattooed a dot on my middle finger while I did one on his. He told me, no matter what happens, he was mine and I was his.
Irreplaceable.
Young love, how innocent, raw, honest yet naive.
4 years..8 years..10 years..I never saw him again. But he was right, we were right. We don't really un-love people. It's funny how a tiny piece of muscle contracts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week non-stop, and yet, has all the limitless capacity to squeeze in every single person who comes through our lives in this lifetime. Whether they stay or they move on, their place remains as theirs.
