Kisses

I have a secret. I haven’t told anyone about this. Which is weird, because thinking on it, it makes for a pretty good story. The secret, is that I don’t know the name of my first kiss. For some reason this fact has bothered me. I literally haven’t told anyone. Everything led me to believe that it was some magical moment that you’d hold dear for the rest of your life. And I’d never found out who I’d shared the moment with. It was middle school, a time of faux responsibilities, raging hormones, and academic mediocrity. The highlight of middle school were definitely the dances. At dances, kids played at being adults and teens. In addition the blaring dance music with beats that shook the gym and the crowd of people created a cathartic environment full of abandon that was matched by little else in the school year.

It was at one such dance, where I kissed someone for the first time. After breaking out moves for that would make Michael Jackson jealous(I’m kidding, I couldn’t, and still can’t, dance), I found myself still standing near a girl that I had spent most of the dance talking to. In a poor attempt to cover up an awkward silence, I came out with the fated lines.

“Let’s kiss,” I suggested.

“Okay,” she replied.

She started to lean in, and I felt my brain go into overdrive. I thought things like,

“That actually worked?”

“Wait, won’t our noses hit?”

“What shape should my mouth be in?”

I didn’t really think it this far through, of the consequences if she said yes to my request, because I assumed she would say no. In fact, my question was more of a joke. Nevertheless, unexpected or not, she had agreed and so I committed to it. I wanted my first kiss to be at least sorta decent.

Our lips met, and the rapid fire thoughts continued. (Our noses didn’t hit)

“Her lips are rough”

“Are mine rough?”

“Her hands are on my neck. Where do my hands go?”

“How long will this last?”

“Can I leave now? Or is that rude?”

“I smell strawberries,”

I became somewhat aware of my surroundings. I saw a classmate walk by with a surprised look on his face. He smiled and gave me two thumbs up. I focused back on her face.

“Her eyes are closed, why?”

“Should I close my eyes?”

She pulled away

“That was nice,” she said.

Dazed, I responded with a “Uh huh,”

She gave me a weird look.

We avoided each other for the rest of the dance.

But I thought the kiss was nice.

She was my first, and I was her’s, so it will always be a special moment. But it clearly wasn’t too special, because today, 6 years later, I don’t remember her name, only a vague recollection of what she looked like.

            I do remember, thinking afterwards at home, how I, or anyone could even think about kissing in a positive, let alone romantic light. I mean, it’s kinda disgusting, you put your mouth on someone else, then sometimes, put your tongue in their mouth, and your saliva mixes with their saliva. Bleh. What if they had a cold? It’s all horribly unsanitary. You don’t see animals doing it. Even they seem to understand that other mouths should not be near or on top of their own. There are some scientific papers that try to explain the existence of kissing. They claim that kissing is a way for two people to use taste and smell to carry out a quick biological compatibility test on a potential partner. I guess it’s not something that should be analyzed as such.

Kissing is weird, but it’s human. And that’s beautiful. I guess. I mean. I’ll keep doing it. But, still’s weird.

Pretty Pictures

Pretty Pictures

Click. There. A snapshot. A snapshot of my life, of our lives-- a moment. It is my firm belief that life leads up to moments, scenes that your mind’s camera takes pictures of. And it’s within the moment that the most satisfaction and pleasure can be derived. When you ask most people what they envision their future to be, they’ll tell you a story. They’ll tell you they hope to probably meet someone they love, settle down, get a nice house, a job they enjoy, and on. Or they might tell you how they want to travel the world, never settle down, and just be whisked away in the absolute whirlwind that life on this planet is. There are more, but you get the picture. But me, I live for moments. Yeah, having a good story is important, but all the stories in people’s worth telling lead up to moments, picturesque moments. I mean, if you’re remembering a scene from your life, you’re doing just that. If you think about it, you’re not reliving the whole story, you’re remembering yourself and everything related to the story in a specific moment. For example, even when you’re trying to remember where you kept your keys, you’re not remembering the locations that you passed through as you went through them that day; your mind’s eye blinks between rooms that you were in, individual instances of your day, that have associations and qualities that you parse to figure out where you left your keys.

So. I’m obsessed with the moments in my life. I try to curate them to fit the platonic ideal for that situation. Sometimes, I use my own judgement, other times, I look to pop culture for tropes and things to model on. I especially like the idea of the three friends, one proper, one wild, and the other, (me), in the middle. As such, my closest friends now are Sophia, the proper one, and Clarissa, the wild one. I’m still a little bit iffy about Sofia. She doesn’t fill the role as well as Emilia did. She just doesn’t care enough about how she’s dressed. I don’t just come up with my own definitions of a pretty image. Emilia, from her name all the way to how she used a knife and fork while she ate a donut, fit the image of the prim, innocent, beauty she was supposed to be. But then Clarissa and I took her to a party, and she took way too kindly to the beer that was at the party. We had to take her home. It simply wouldn’t do for her to act like that, so I found Sophia. Sophia does not drink. She has a personality that’s a bit rougher around the edges, but she is very anti-drug. She’ll do. This all sounds a bit odd, I know, but this is to please myself, not the world. I feel that most psychologists will tell me will tell me this sort of obsession will lead to various anxiety disorders. But I’m okay with that, if it does happen. And it hasn’t yet. Or maybe it has. And I’ve just not noticed. But things are prettier this way. If every moment my mind’s eye flicks towards is pleasing to me, I’ll be happy, right? I should live it the way I want. I’m not insecure or anxious, I’m just trying to live a life I’d look back on with joy. Speaking of joy, yesterday was a big moment.

Yesterday was important. Yesterday, he kissed me. My love. He kissed me. I’d planned how it would go down for days. I looked up how to cue a guy to kiss me, (ehow is wonderful), and made sure to only give those signs when we were under the trellis in the garden of the local park. But he messed it up. He kissed me, but he kissed me wrong. He used way too much tongue (I’m a lady! Not a common whore! It’s too soon for so much lingual involvement.), held me wrong, and didn’t kiss me when the sun was setting, he kissed me after. I don’t know what to do. He’s perfect, but he’s ruined such a key moment of our lives together. Is it even worth it to continue? When it’s been so irreparably tainted? I threw myself onto my bed in my room, beating my pillow. “That’s the way-- It should have begun! But it’s hopeless!” I pause, I realize I could have really sold the throwing of my body better.

I get up, I throw myself on my bed again. This time, my comforter buys my performance and gets thrown up by the impact, and covers a bit of my head, as if to wipe my tears. I’ll admit, I’m a bit smug about that. That was a really good throw.

                He’s a bit cute. Even withstanding his obscene corruption of the kiss, I decide I should go see him. I drag myself into my car and get to the school field where he runs track. I stand at the edge of the field, and yell, “HEY! OVER HERE! I WANT TO TALK TO YOU!”. He doesn’t even look up. I walk back to my car, and get up on it. I yell a bit more, worrying that I may be overdoing this. Oh well. I needed a moment of public humiliation anyway. He turns after as I feel myself start getting hoarse. He looks a bit confused, and runs over.

                “What’s up? Why’re you yelling? I only recognized you once I get closer, you sound different when you’re yelling.”, he says, breathing heavily.

                “I wanted to talk to you, why didn’t you come the first time I called?”, I ask.

                “I told you I didn’t know it was you. Why didn’t you yell my name?”, he asks, and straightens up and looks at me.

….I have a confession to make. I really, really really, really don’t like his name. It bothers me, and it makes me feel shallow, which is definitely not pretty. But I just can’t like it. I hate names with H’s or g’s in them. Just ugly letters. As I’m thinking this, I take a step back, away from him, away from the offending question. And I sort of fall of the car I never stepped down from.

                Well, not sort of. I fall. I scream and flail my arms to no avail. I’m mortified, standing and yelling on a car one thing; falling off the car is way too much public humiliation. I have vague thoughts about the possibility of my dying, but really there is no way to make this situation better. But all of a sudden, he’s there. He’s there around me, and I’m not dead, which may be better at this point, but I realize he’s caught me. In that moment I realize a couple things. Being saved is definitely pretty. I see why princesses let themselves get locked up in grimy towers with dragons. It’s for this.

He looks absolutely celestial as he gazes into my face, I realize I definitely love him, and that maybe having a dopey boyfriend who doesn’t understand what pretty means actually fits with an image that I can get behind. Especially if he keeps this saving thing up. And besides, falling too fast has its own sort of glamor. He’s worth it. Other than this, he’s kind, he’s respectful to those who deserve it, my friends are jealous of him, and he loves me. I’m lucky to have him. And I’ll admit, I’m a quirky girl with a bit of an obsession that gets me into tight spots. It’s nice to have someone unaware to watch out in case I go too far. Romeo and Juliet probably didn’t think too hard about what they were getting themselves into. I won’t either. I do a little half swoon while still in his arms,

                “Oh my god, Harry, you caught me.”

                “Huh, I guess you do know my name. I was getting worried”, he smirks

                “Of course I know your name, actually I quite like your name”, I breathe.

                “You’re an idiot. Don’t fall off cars.” He kisses my forehead, shakes his head and runs back to his teammates.

He was perfect. I watched him practice, still a bit dazed.

I was sure about this, though. We’d work out. We are in love. And damn, are we pretty.