The Mango That Was Not for Me (First Love)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
The first love
Was not a boy
The first love
Was the river
Behind the house
Where bà ngoại hung the washing
And the river
Made a sound
That I have spent
Twenty years in cities
Trying to find
In faucets
And in rain
And in the way
A bath fills
When the tap
Is almost closed
And none of them
Are the river
And the searching
Is its own kind of love
For a sound
That does not exist
Outside of a province
Nobody in this café
Has heard of

The boy
Was beside the river
Which is why
I have confused them
For twenty years
The boy and the river
The river and the boy
Both of them
Moving at a speed
I could not keep up with
Both of them
Making a sound
I would spend my life
Trying to hear again

[Pre-Chorus]
He handed me a mango
That was not for me
I knew it was not for me
Because I saw him
Pick it that morning
For the girl
Whose father
Had the boat
And the boat
Was important
And the mango
Was politics
And I took it anyway
And the taking
Was the first time
I chose something
That was not mine
And the choosing
Tasted like a mango
And like guilt
And like the river
All at once

[Chorus]
Tình yêu đầu tiên, tình yêu đầu tiên
The first love that tasted like someone else's mango
Tình yêu đầu tiên, tình yêu đầu tiên
The river I cannot find
In any faucet
In any city
The boy who was already
Promised to a boat
And I was not a boat
I was a girl
Standing by a river
Taking a mango
She had no right to
And the having no right
Made the mango
The sweetest thing
She had tasted
And the sweetest thing
She would taste
For a long time
Because the first taste
Ruins the others
Not by being better
But by being first

[Verse 2]
Eleven women
Saw me take the mango
And said nothing
Bà ngoại
Was one of the eleven
And she said the most nothing
Of all of them
A nothing so loud
I can still hear it
In the kitchen
When she looks at me
And almost says something
And then doesn't
And the doesn't
Is the mango
Still in her mouth
After all these years

The boy married
The girl with the boat
This is not a sad story
This is a story
About a mango
And a river
And the way
First love
Is not a person
First love
Is the combination
Of a person
And a place
And a temperature
And a sound
And a taste
That will never
Align again
In exactly that way
And the never aligning again
Is not the tragedy
The never aligning again
Is the definition
Of first

[Bridge]
I went back once
To the river
And the river
Was smaller than I remembered
And the house
Was someone else's
And the washing line
Was gone
And the mango tree
Was still there
Which meant
That of all the things
I loved first
The tree
Was the only one
That stayed
And I sat under it
And the shade
Was the same shade
And I thought
Some things survive
By not moving
And the tree
Knew this
Before I did

[Outro]
Tình yêu đầu tiên
The mango
The river
The eleven women
Who said nothing
The boy
Who was not mine
The taste
That ruined the others
Not by being better
But by being first
Con nhớ
I remember
Con nhớ tất cả
I remember all of it