About daybreak-fresh first love when everything awkward is feeling 

and upside-down heartbreak world falling away and you without ego 

or pretense of knowing someone you’d probably never end up with 

who knew you open-endedly and unvarnished and even better than 

you thought you knew your self-conscious self and told you in forthright 

ways unpolluted by drink or drugs or porn when you felt truly known

having your insecure self been tapped into and not caring and now just 

faking it with other schoolyard dick twits and though fraught with angst 

and scattergun feelings you couldn’t entirely make bank on like later hookup 

and marital downsides that now may not seem so certain when always on 

curated self-reflexive camera cue or social Look(s) of the Other so that first

felt feeling’s love loss haunts still when seemingly most satisfied with career 

and partner which yet measures you against every other grownup stirring 

you may not ever again feel as before even when in a “committed relationship” 

or later pussyfooting conscious uncoupling despite hostages to fortune rituals 

in-law platitudes and endless compromise into longevity making an art of losing 

or leaving others in the wake like that one elusive just right mot juste tying a poem 

tight or perfect pop hook pitched by kiss-ass lead-in drum kit sticks’ whomp 

hands and arms flailing yet scoring my bones into ‘80s lalalalas and whiplash 

guitar riffs shredding strings before an anemic impish teen waif chanteuse bleats 

a walk-back power ballad anthem earworm quality re never being forgotten having 

heaven on earth sealing all with a fade-into-you kiss weepy with high school nostalgia 

ache and hurt embedded in the marrow since that first felt feeling like no other of being

‍ unfettered and alive now flying solo in some upstart cacophonous Spotify playlist wilderness 

of memory and desire on shuffle repeat you your lost love dream past long time gone.