You Can Never Kiss Too Many People In Your Life

I’ve kissed someone under the moonlight, on the porch of my childhood home. I kissed them long and hard and silently so we wouldn’t wake my sleeping parents. I’ve kissed someone sneakily in the back room of my summer work place, where it smelt of beer and cigarettes and sweat. It was forbidden and dangerous and I felt alive.

I’ve kissed someone in the backseat of a car on a random Tuesday night in the middle of summer. We kissed and listened to music until the time came for the sun to rise and for us to go our separate ways. I kissed a boy I had a crush on in high school seven years after the fact, while looking at the stars, reminiscing on our old romance and drunk off the idea for our possible new one.

I’ve kissed someone who I shouldn’t have kissed, whose lips were not mine to be kissing, someone whose kiss felt right and safe and dangerous and wrong all at once. I’ve kissed someone on vacation knowing very well I’d never see them again. I kissed them on the cold sand late at night, with nothing but the sound of ocean waves and bugs buzzing in the background.

I’ve kissed someone on the dance floor on a Friday night, when my mind was cloudy from tequila and my body sweaty from the heat emitting off the drunkenly swaying crowd. I kissed someone tangled in sheets on a Sunday morning when the time seemed to stand still and the sun shined through the curtains perfectly. I kissed them again the next Sunday and the one after and the one after that. I kissed them many Sundays in a row for a long while.

I’ve kissed someone at the cottage, someone I’d known for years, whose kiss was familiar, but only in the summer time below the bright July moon when my hair is messy and my skin is freckled and tan. I’ve kissed someone for the first time filled with fear, excitement and longing and I’ve kissed that same person for the last time, knowing I’d never kiss them again, struck with the same emotions as I felt the first time.

I’ve kissed someone who ended up breaking my heart, who loved me but not in the same way or capacity as I loved them. I’ve kissed someone whose kiss I never expected but whose kiss sent a shiver down my spine, goose bumps across my body and butterflies to my stomach.

I’ve kissed someone I loved very much, whose dreams, fears and imperfections I knew as well as my own and whose lips felt like home. I’ve kissed someone I didn’t know at all, for one night only, someone I probably couldn’t pick out of a crowd, but whose presence in this story matters nonetheless because of that shared articulate kiss.

I’ve kissed many people over my years of looking for love and I’ve found it many times. I’ve been in love for days, for years, for seconds, minutes, and for months. I’ve been in real love, in young love, in lust love, in forbidden love. I’ve found all types of love.

I’ve kissed many different people, under many different circumstances over my years of being and I plan to kiss many many more because you can never kiss too many people in your lifetime.

And because there is nothing quite as alive as a kiss.