The One

By Ellen Forder

How far back is it acceptable to look?

Let’s be honest. It doesn’t ever begin with reality, love.

Go back to before ‘I love you’, before kissing and handholding. 

Pass by coy glances and blushes and friends as go-betweens.

Flick backwards through the magazines,

unpin the posters from your purple bedroom walls.

Lie on your bed and sleep instead of imagining what if.

It all begins with a book. Falling in love with a boy crafted from words 

who lives in a land of paper. 

Bring me my childhood loves, who set me up to fail 

by being so perfect they existed only in my mind’s eye and

between the pages.