At 12 years old, my first kiss was no different than sticking a hypodermic needle into my arm filled with heroine. Honey I was so hooked on falling in love after that kiss, whoever I was becoming, whatever talent I was cultivating faded away like a ship on the horizon. 24/7. BOYS. I was either with one or searching for one from that moment on.

You see my homelife was filled with unspeakable pain, and that kiss was the antidote. Only thing is sometimes the doctor gives you the wrong prescription. If I could go back in time, I’d go back to that first kiss and let the beauty of it wash all over me and then I’d write my own script.

The script would say: WARNING. Love can be addictive. Proceed with caution and remember to love yourself first.

Did you really think I’d give up that kiss?

I’ve never had my first kiss. I came close twice but I wasn’t ready and the second was with a douchebag... But he never kissed me, thank God.

But the way I hope my first kiss goes... I want it to be with my boyfriend, my only real boyfriend, PolarBear228. We’ve been dating 31 months as of today. But we haven’t gotten eto ever kiss because we’re long distance (for now).

So how do I imagine it?

I imagine it’s our first time being with each other. Someone is filming us because why the hell not. Well, I hug him and bury my face in his chest and relax (something nearly impossible for me as I’ve always been a naturally tense person). He’ll embrace me tightly and his hand will get tangled in my hair and finally, he’ll hook his finger under my chin and tilt my hea back so I’m looking at him and he’ll kiss me. A soft, tender kiss full of love and joy. I’ll probably freeze and have no idea what to do but eventually I’ll kiss him back while I’m smiling like an idiot and I’ll lean into the kiss and he’ll cup my face in his hands and then pull away leaving barely an inch of space between us and he’ll stroke my cheeks with his thumbs and whisper something softly like I love you or your nose is so cold. And I’ll grab his wrists and depending on what he says I may kiss him... or I’ll stick my freezing cold nose on the bare skin of his neck.

Then later, we’ll find out that whoever filmed us, actually got our kiss on camera. I’ll go back and pause it at the perfect moment and then screenshot it and get it printed out and after we’re married (which we’ll most likely be married in like a year to 2.5 years) it’ll be hung up on our wall and with it, a picture of us at our wedding. And then I’ll buy clocks and put the hands at the times they were taken (If I remember) and eventually, I’ll paint “Moments when time stood still” and photos of our children at birth will go there too with their own clocks.

I will be alone forever.

There is this

a c h i n g

b r o k e n e s s

that dwells inside my chest.

I have not had my first kiss

(nor do I think I will ever have one)

and no kiss

can fix

this

h o l l o w n e s s

this

u n b e a t i n g

heart.

I can not envision

a kiss.

I am sorry.

I just can't.

All I see is me

left

a l o n e

with a

b l e e d i n g

under my breast.

young girl, barely 16. teenage boy, a little awkward, 17.

beautiful sunset and a picnic.

soft and sweet.

pure.

It was a neon themed football game. I dressed up for him. I watched as he played this over-hyped game, not focusing on the chattering girls around me. I wanted to know how football worked.

The game ended, and it was the first win for our school.

He walked over, my sweet, sweaty baby. I fantasized him kissing me in front of the crowd, or in front of his friends, or in front of his parents. Just to show that he really liked me. But alas, I was greeted with a warm "hi baby!" Good enough for me.

Sweaty picture,

McDonalds at 10pm,

then my doorstep.

I expected the same comforting hug, then our 'salute' that we always do. I don't know who started that.

Well, we most certainly hugged.

I heard a soothing, rhythmic heartbeat in his chest.

Please kiss me.

I heard a simple "baby" with a tug at my chin.

Please kiss me.

I then heard my own racing heartbeat as he gave me a sloppy, sweet, short kiss.

I laughed inside as I remembered that neither of us really knew what we were doing. I wondered if he searched up how to kiss on YouTube.

As far as I know, our first kiss was unmatched. It may not have been a perfect electric moment, and it most certainly wasn't in the rain as I had hoped, but it was good enough to me.

Oh baby. :)

It was late summer-early autumn. School was back in swing. The days were warm, the nights cool, the moons sharp.

For a fifteen year old boy waking up to the wider world it felt that life was tilted on edge, hanging on a precipice. There were so many directions to take, so many paths, not the least of which was to just let go, and fall into the chasm.

She was older, and she did the work. She would have had to.

I had noticed her before, had caught her glances in the hallways, and on the bus, but girls were a newly discovered attraction, and a mysterious one. I suspected what those glances meant, but did not yet know what to do with them.

She was new in the neighborhood. She showed up at the courts one day, where we were hanging out, playing ball, “smoking and joking,” as boys will do. She was alone, and unworried by it. She wore short, cut-off jeans below a frilly top that left her mid-riff bare, like her feet. They were unmistakably “after school” clothes... play clothes, if you will.

She hung out from a distance, watching as we “showed-out,” pretending not to notice her there. We drained bucket after bucket, but she was a sport untried, and the confidence was not yet built in us to walk over, or to speak.

She was still there when we broke it up, with everyone heading off in their differing directions. Like a lioness on the edge of the herd she angled towards the least wary and the most vulnerable, sensing an easy kill.

She drew alongside me. We walked a while, and we talked a while, until she was ready to stop walking, and stop talking.

When she stopped we were alone. It was a spot with no houses, no cars... a spot for creating secrets. I knew what was coming, just as the antelope knows what is coming. I could see it in her eyes. I could see it in the wetness of her mouth, and in how her straight, perfect teeth dug into her lower lip as she smiled at me like at candy. I could feel it in the weakness of my knees, and in the weight of my groin, and in the pounding... pounding... pounding of trepidatious excitement pulsing through me.

Why me, I wondered? Why had she chosen me? Of all the boys in the halls, and all of the boys on the bus, and all of the basketball boys, what had singled me out?

And then those thoughts no longer mattered as she stepped closer. I could smell her now, fresh and clean, like flowers and soap. Her eyes were wide, hypnotic, dizzying. She was so close I could feel her bare toes atop my tennis shoe. Her breath mixed with mine as our bodies pressed together. I noticed things I couldn’t have before, a light spatter of freckles on her nose, the colorless, wispy hairs on her cheeks, that her eyes were green and yellow and speckled through with black, like a cat’s.

She held to the front of my shirt, pulling me in, and in I went... all of the way. She pulled me a thousand miles-a-minute into a whirling pool of physical sensations, emotional insecurities, and hormonal urges. Everything mixed, and swirled downward, pulling me into the vortex. I fell into a soft, warm wetness that caressed, and cooed, and lightly suckled until I understood her lusts and discovered a few of my own that had been swimming in the deeper depths of me, conserving energy, waiting to thrust whale-like towards the surface in a desperate grasp at heaven.

My hands found the bare skin round her waist. They explored it, and then drifted upward. They lingered there, and squeezed, ever so gently. She moaned softly, and suckled harder, and time was forgotten, and place.

The world became safer, life more balanced, purpose revealed as the loving touch of another smoothed the wrinkles.

I stopped wondering why. Why no longer mattered.

I was unlocked, the man released, and I understood then that woman was the key.

I always thought something about me was broken, before you came along.

That had to be the reason I had never been able to love, right?

But you came along, and you lit up my world, and suddenly I couldn't breathe.

I've always been made to burn, but you outshone even me.

For every word I said, you always had one to match me.

When people talked about their soulmates, this was what I imagined they were saying.

But you had a boyfriend, and I wasn't good enough to compete with him.

Until that day you showed up on my door, tears streaming down your face.

My heart broke to see someone so happy look so completely destroyed.

I let you in immediately, and we watched movies for the rest of the day.

You fell asleep on my shoulder - did you ever realise I never let anyone touch me before you?

You stayed that night at my apartment - and then the next, and then the next.

Days turned to weeks to months and we fell into a cute domestic lifestyle.

Coming home and knowing you were there made my heart happier than it'd ever been.

But then you started going out on dates again, and it felt like my heart was shattering.

Until that one night, when I came home and you were in the sitting room.

You looked nervous in a way I'd never seen before.

I asked you why, and you shook your head, before mumbling out a question I didn't hear.

I asked you to repeat it, Do you like girls?

My heart skipped a beat as I shrugged. Probably. I don't really date.

You swallowed. What about me? Do you like me?

I shrugged. You were a good friend.

You shook your head. What about like-like? Not just as friends.

I shrugged, but internally my heart wouldn't stop beating.

Have you ever kissed someone? You changed the subject.

It was my turn to blush, as my eyes dropped to the floor. I'd never been interested in it.

Not before you, anyway.

You asked me if I'd like to try.

My ears burnt when I caught your gaze.

I nodded. I doubt you knew how nervous I was, or perhaps you did. You could always read me.

Your moved closer towards me, and then your lips were on mine.

And it was like nothing I'd ever felt.

I felt like I was on cloud nine, or whatever they call it these days.

It was amazing.

I couldn't believe I'd never done anything like this before.

I couldn't believe I'd ever been satisfied with not having done this with you.

I wanted to do it again, but my brain couldn't find the words.

You'd stunned me to silence, in a way no one else could.

That would have been enough for me to fall for you.

You seemed to know what I wanted to say though, and there was a small blush on your cheeks as you leaned in again.

You poked me instead, and stuck your tongue out.

We both laughed.

It'd taken me a while to find love - true love, that is, the kind that's intoxicating.

The kind that's the drug you don't ever want to stop taking.

It'd taken me a while, but that was alright, because I had you.

And when I looked into your eyes, I knew everything was going to be alright.