“I am the one before the one. It’s a role I’ve learned to accept. I am the one who will overload your senses, I am far too much of everything, but you will try to encompass all that I am. I will be the one who teaches you exactly what you want from “the one.” With me you will see things as though the lights were turned too high on the dimmer so that you could only see me and the music too loud that you couldn’t quite hear anybody else. With the next girl you end up with she will shine just brightly enough that you will be able to see everything you couldn’t see with me and the volume of her music will not leave you deaf when the song ends. I will help you grow by pushing you to the extent of your limit, I will call you out when you’re wrong, I will ask you to do a little better than last time, and I will love you with a love you didn’t even know could exist. It will feel as though one hand I’ve given you to hold holds all the love in the world and the other holds the words my tongue lashes out with no filter. But with those hands you will learn both the love you deserve and how to finally not hold back how you truly feel. These hands will teach you to speak freely without fear of condemnation and condescending judgements. They will teach you to love and touch everything that you find beautiful as you pull your hands through her hair or frolic through a patch of flowers and pull the petals to your face to smell their fragrance. You see after me, you’ll learn not only how to love yourself, but love her. She will tell you that she’s never experienced a love quite like yours and you’ll never tell the secret that you learned it from me. You see, I am the one before the one. But like that scar you got from scraping your knee on the climb up your favorite mountain, you won’t forget me. When pieces of her emanate me, I will be present in the breath you hold in just a second too long at the memory of me, the sharp feeling on your tongue as you bite down as my name starts to slip through your mouth, the butterflies in your stomach as you remember the way my eyes lit up at your presence. Her smooth edges that represent who she is will often remind you of my jagged edges, the ones that cut you but you still loved to climb. And for all those moments you’re reminded of me, you’ll touch your knee and realize you hadn’t climbed your favorite mountain to your favorite view in a while. You’ll wonder if instead of the common smooth edged rock you’d found on the ground, the one you could buy for five dollars at your local farmers market, you could’ve had a fine cut diamond with jagged edges. And as you look into her eyes and see your reflection you’ll wonder if the pressure of my love could’ve made you a diamond as well.”
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
amandla
kianamaiart
izzy806
andulkaphoto
titsay
stormborns
