The First Time You Kissed Me

The first time you kissed me it was March 22nd.

I don’t actually remember our first kiss but I will never forget that night. I remember because we danced and drank beers in that empty house and I remember staring at your smile. You asked to go somewhere quiet and we sat parallel to each other in the tree house outside. There were pine needles everywhere and I think one got stuck in the bottom of my palm and you helped me pull it out, pressing your hand against mine to stop the stinging.

How much of a YA novel were we? We danced in a furniture-less house before having a heart to heart in a fucking tree house.

It was perfect. You were perfect.

I don’t actually remember our first kiss but I remember the electricity I felt around you. My pulse was always racing, my breath shortened, my senses on fire. It was like being able to feel everything at once while being simultaneously numb to everything that wasn’t you. Being within a fingertips graze of you made my skin feel like it was constantly doing that pins and needles dance when your arm falls asleep. I remember feeling like a magnet, like going towards you, being with you was completely out of my control.

How cliché can I possibly be? I couldn’t control it – I never wanted to control it.

I just wanted you.

I don’t actually remember our first kiss but I remember how you tasted. I remember the rolled cigarettes and the beer and the mint and the never-ending optimism I could taste rolling around inside of you. All of the promises and the hope I had heard come out of that mouth for months were now connected to me. For the first time in years I could taste potential, I could taste passion, I could taste love.

How ridiculous was I? I said I never believed in love at first sight but the first time you actually kissed me I was yours.

I never wanted to be anyone else’s.

I don’t actually remember our first kiss but I remember your eyes. I remember you staring into mine like you were trying to memorize me. I remember you tracing my face with your fingers, with whispers, with the most ridiculously penetrating gaze that I was positive was also reading my thoughts. I could feel you looking at me as more than someone to see naked. You were seeing me.

How stupidly poetic is that? Had I been spending too much time Googling love quotes? Here you were, someone I had been thinking about for weeks, for months, and I was self-conscious about the idea of you looking at me.

But I prayed you’d never stop.

The first time you kissed me it was March 22nd and after midnight. We had danced in an empty house on carpet that would later be torn up while everyone toasted around us but we weren’t drunk on anything other than anticipation and each other.

The first time you kissed me was in your dorm room that smelled like incense, herbs, and you. We clung to each other in your twin-sized bed and if I could have stayed there forever, I would have.

The first time you kissed me was the last time something so trivial meant so much. I remember the rest of the first kisses as exactly what they were, a first step to the next. But with you it was so much more. Something that I keep under lock and key and so close to my heart I can’t actually pinpoint the exact moment.

I don’t actually remember our first kiss but it doesn’t matter because I remember never wanting it to stop.