what fifteen should have felt like

the version of love i was supposed to have

i saw a tiktok this morning that asked, “if you could imagine the love you wish you had experienced as a teenager, what would it look like?” and i froze.

because the truth is, i didn’t get to have that kind of story. my adolescence was not made of lockers, mixtapes and slow dances. it was made of grown-a** men, adults men, who looked at a fifteen-year-old boy desperate to be loved and saw a place to project their own loneliness.

writing this was both devastating and strangely healing. it reminded me of what was stolen. not just innocence. but the chance to grow beside someone, to stumble and learn together, to love without danger or debt.

i would have loved to fall in love with someone my own age. to write silly notes in classe. to share fries after school. to learn tenderness slowly, awkwardly, safely.

this poem is what that might have looked like, the love story i never got to live, but that i still, even now, sometimes dream of… at least for that version of myself.

---

it’s strange,
how silence chooses its timing.
today it came cloaked
in the scent of mothballed cardboard and ink gone soft,
a letter i didn’t know i kept.
your handwriting looping like a boy’s voice breaking mid-song,
a time-capsule breath,
smelling of airport gum, eucalyptus lotion,
and the last hug you gave me with both arms.

i don’t think of you much anymore.
not because the past didn’t sear itself into the back of my teeth,
but because that life
feels like someone else’s skin.
and yet…
there you were,
folded between old postcards and friendships
i outgrew like jeans from my sophomore year.
you.
in a letter you sent with a package
before america took you for a year
and i watched you pixelate
across a continent.

we were barely fifteen
when you walked into my life
like a match flicked in a forest.
i remember it now.
laura’s birthday,
the room tight with balloons and hormones.
you moved through that party like you owned every laugh in it,
and i,
stiff in a sweater two sizes too hopeful,
was still trying to learn
the geometry of wanting.
you wore yourself
like a flame wears oxygen.
and i didn’t know yet
how much i was allowed to burn.

you laughed like citrus fizzing in a glass,
and when we talked,
it felt like language had hands.
words wrapped around me.
i tasted something sweet in the back of my throat
and i wasn’t that cake or that drink.

the first movie.
god, that theater was a box of breathless seconds.
you took my hand like it was
a secret you were ready to ruin.
our palms met,
and suddenly i could feel
every pair of eyes that might turn us into cautionary tales.

your thumb brushed mine
like a violin string being tested.
and still,
i didn’t pull away.
your skin was warm.
your scent:
a mix of chewing gum and the detergent your mom swore by.
i heard the soft shuffle of popcorn,
but all i could taste
was fear,
and the salt of being wanted.

our first kiss
wasn’t cinematic.
it was clumsy,
the way all holy things are at the start.
your room smelled of cedar,
and your parents’ voices hummed somewhere downstairs
like distant bees.

you told them i was helping you with a school project.
i nodded,
hands trembling around my backpack straps.
your mom offered cookies
with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
your dad grunted a hello
that weighed more than any sentence i’ve ever heard.

we kissed in the half-dark.
your breath minty,
mine held like a stolen thing.
you leaned in like you’d done this before.
i leaned in like it might save me.

the first time.
your parents had gone to france,
the house echoing like it missed them.
you lit candles even though it was noon.
we undressed like boys hiding from god,
fumbling through buttons
and breath,
laughter,
and holy panic.

you whispered,
“are you sure you want to do this?”
and my nod felt like a key turning inside me.
your sheets smelled like something between rain
and your cologne.
outside, the wind carried the sound of dogs
and a distant bell tower.

we were sixteen,
and trying on adulthood
like a suit too big,
arms dragging on the floor,
but we wore it like kings anyway.

your parents’ house in the ardennes
was a postcard i still dream in.
the pool shimmered like a secret we didn’t share.
you swam,
every muscle of you speaking a language
i hadn’t learned yet.
i lay on a towel that smelled of chlorine and lemon.
i was the sun’s guest,
biting into peaches
that stained my mouth red.

your dog barked at the wind.
your sister kept asking if i was your best friend.
you always said yes.
and i always felt
like a lie with legs.

but we built kingdoms
behind hedges and sunburns,
where your hand could meet mine
and the world
forgot how to look.

i wore a tie
the day you introduced me to your parents for real.
purple, ridiculous,
as if fabric could impress your father.
i looked like a boy pretending to be a man
pretending not to be in love.

you opened the door,
took one look
and burst into a laugh
that knocked every word out of me.
you kissed me on the cheek
while your mom watched.
i felt her blink.
i felt your hand linger.
and i swear
even the wallpaper held its breath.

you waited for me
at the gate of my school,
always five minutes early.
we lived across the city from each other
but you walked me home
like time was a thing we had too much of.

your coat smelled like winter and soap.
you’d sneak your hand into mine
in quiet alleys,
where we could pretend
the world was just us.

you’d sleep over,
your breath warm behind my ear,
whispering “i love you”
like it was the only prayer you knew.
i’d lie awake afterward,
listening to your heart slow down
like rain settling into soil.

when you got into the program in the states,
your joy cracked me open.
you twirled me in your bedroom
while music played too loud
and your sister yelled at us to shut up.
you packed with the focus of a storm.

i remember the goodbye party,
where i pretended to be proud
while you laughed with people
who’d never held your hand in terror.
i kissed you in the hallway
while everyone sang along to some stupid pop song
i can’t hear anymore without choking on the past.

and then…
the airport.
the air smelled like coffee and distance.
your fingers brushed my neck
as you whispered,
“we’ll come out of this stronger.”
but your eyes
already looked like goodbye.

we dreamed of forever
that afternoon on your bed,
imagining our house
with red bricks, a garden,
two adopted kids who’d call us both “dad.”
you said you’d cook.
i said i’d plant sunflowers.
we made vows
without realizing
how easily they burn.

we tried.
oh god, we tried.
but time zones chewed us up.
your 10am was my 4am.
and that guy in your photos
kept showing up in your smile.

i hated him
the way a boy hates what he fears.
you accused me of never being there.
i told you love shouldn’t feel
like a calendar full of apologies.
and skype froze
in the middle of your crying.

that was the last time.

when you came back
we tried to pick up the pieces
like beach glass,
pretty in the light,
but sharp in the wrong places.
three months.
that’s all we lasted.
three months of trying
to fit two ghosts into one room.

i remember the last fight.
your voice cracked.
i said nothing.
the call ended
with silence
instead of a click.

you left again.
this time for good.

you were…
my first kiss.
my first love.
my first ‘i love you.’
my first time.
my first future.
my first ‘i think we can make it.’
my first heartbreak.
my first goodbye.

and still,
i rarely think of you.
not because you didn’t matter,
but because the weight of you
has become weather in me.
something i live under,
not through.

sometimes,
i see your life online.
your little boy with your nose.
your husband,
smiling,
safe.
your home in the countryside
like a promise
fulfilled.

i’m happy for you.
honestly.
i hope he holds you at night
and lets you cry
without asking why.
i hope your son never feels the need to lie
about who he loves.

and yet,
on days like this,
when a letter wakes the dust
and breathes
your name into the room,
i remember
how we built
a whole world
from two trembling hands
and a single,
undeniable
yes.

and for a heartbeat,
you are fifteen again,
holding that wine glass of cola,
wearing your certainty like armor.
and i am still learning
how to be anything at all.

and you’re reaching for me in the dark.
and i am
still afraid,
but god,
i’m reaching back.