Young Love

When I was a kid, people used to tease me and a male cousin for being particularly affectionate with each other. He was about two years older than me. I was four.

One time, he climbed to the top of the rambutan tree in the yard of my father's childhood home and wrestled a bunch of rambutans loose from the branch. When he was back on the ground, he sat beside me on the back porch of the house and peeled the red skin of a rambutan open, smiled at me in the afternoon sun, and held the fruit toward me without saying a word. He barely knew any English, and I barely knew any Malay.

I took the fruit from his hand appreciatively, struck with the realization that this was the very first time a boy was being sweet to me.

Even as a kid, I knew that was what true love was about. Braving the swarms of fire ants living in the rambutan tree, and presenting the prize to the object of your affections.

Years go by and it takes with it the sincerity of young love. There were no ulterior motives then, no desperate need for companionship, no peer pressure, and no idea of complications. Just the intention of loving, and sharing. Young love embodies a naivete that's true for all of the innocence still undestroyed, untainted, uncorrupted.

The memory of such an event surpasses even the grandeur of poetry for me. If it's true what is said about the first boy who showed you that sort of love sets the standard for every other boy you will meet for the rest of your life, I fear that I am doomed. Because innocence is destructible. Growing up seems to make sure of that. That innocence which has been ingrained within me by my cousin as being a favorable quality in a man.