Kissing ... is a lost art. Remember when you were sixteen and kissing was like ... amazing? Putting your mouth on someone else's was like discovering fire and the cure for cancer all in one neat, wet little package. Well ... I mean ... not at first. Maybe it is for some people ... maybe some people have that movie-moment first kiss. Others of us have ... a learning curve.
My first kiss was when I was a freshman at Sacred Heart Academy ... an all-girls Catholic high school. He was a senior at Griffin ... the all-boys Catholic high school. We were working on theater sets ... and someone on the staff sent the two of us into the storage room to get something. WHY you would send a male teenager and a female teenager into a dark storage area is beyond me ... nothing good is going to come of this situation.
I wasn't expecting it ... but he kissed me. It was ... ... ... wet? It wasn't bad ... but it wasn't ... WOW ... you know? It was more like ... hmmm ... so that's what it's about, huh?
(Note: Wanna hear the cool part of this story? My best friend since kindergarten had been bragging for years about all the kissing she was doing. I am not gonna lie ... I was hella jealous. Later that day, when I ran into her in the hall and gushed about how I had finally gotten my first kiss ... she admitted she'd been lying all those years. She'd never kissed anyone. That knowledge didn't make my first kiss any better necessarily ... but it did make me feel like less of a loser. Yay peer pressure.)
(Note: Wanna hear the cool part of this story? My best friend since kindergarten had been bragging for years about all the kissing she was doing. I am not gonna lie ... I was hella jealous. Later that day, when I ran into her in the hall and gushed about how I had finally gotten my first kiss ... she admitted she'd been lying all those years. She'd never kissed anyone. That knowledge didn't make my first kiss any better necessarily ... but it did make me feel like less of a loser. Yay peer pressure.)
Anyhow ... nothing really came of it. The kid called to ask me to a dance and my Dad, for perfectly logical reasons, tripped balls when he found out my gentleman caller was a senior. Good call, Dad! After all, I was only fourteen. I wasn't really ready for that kind of thing anyway ... considering a few days later when he tried to put his hand on my chest ... on the outside of my shirt, mind you ... I slapped him. Ah, youth ... times do change, don't they ...
Things got better. You learn. You kiss someone with braces and you learn those little rubber bands hurt like fuck when they snap. You kiss someone who smokes and you learn what licking an ashtray would taste like. It takes time ... but you learn.
Then ... every great once in awhile ... you kiss someone who knows how to kiss. It takes your breath away. Literally. You gasp for air ... you grasp onto their hair, assuming their hair is long enough to grasp ... and it's like diving into the cool water of a swimming pool after being in the desert for years. And you hope ... just hope ... that kissing you is half as good for them ... as kissing them is for you.
The art of kissing ... it's like that old joke. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice ... practice ... practice ...
Oh, kiss me beneath the milky twilight
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me
Lead me out on the moonlit floor
Lift your open hand
Strike up the band and make the fireflies dance
Silver moon's sparkling
So kiss me
Sixpence None The Richer
