Kisses

Kisses

There are those little ones when you’re a kid.
Small pecks that you think are the real thing,
but know that there is probably more to it.
You don’t tell anyone, though.

They might see that you don't know it all.

First kiss,
honestly, I can just about remember it.

The more serious type,
awkward, probably.
Starting off gentle, ending like
trying to reach the last of the yoghurt
at the bottom of the pot….

….with just your tongue.

I've never done that thing you sometimes see in films,
the awkward kids clashing teeth early on.
I’ve had some that involve
rather too much saliva though,
sometimes given, sometimes received.

Kisses more akin to a snake
in a nature documentary
attempting to swallow its prey.
Success is gradual,

a feeling of contentment follows.

There’s something special about that
feeling, when you’re young,
butterflies in the stomach
feeling like you’ve found someone,

even if fleetingly.

It's not always like that....

Kisses designed to sting, too,
those that would offer them
only as a sort of game,
to immediately tell you they mean nothing,

to go straight back to their friends and laugh,
to tell you that despite your kisses,
that you’ll never be loved,
will probably die alone

you think that would put you off,
but somehow it doesn’t.

Is that the nature of a kiss?
The nature of love?
The nature of you?

You know the pain of missed kisses,
Not giving them when perhaps you should,
because 15 year-olds don’t do that.
A kiss goodbye isn’t cool,

until that missed goodbye and kiss haunts you,
when they pass away 30 minutes after,
with you in class, unaware,
then being broken upon hearing the news.

You get to give them that kiss,
but it’s a cold, waxy form that receives it
in a chapel of rest, as you try to communicate
with them, somehow, without words.

A 30-minute miss, still hurts 30 years later.

Drunken kisses,
random people in clubs and bars,
sometimes the kiss becomes something more.
A night, week, something longer term.

Something that takes you across the world,
lifts you and shows you something you’ve never seen before
you feel things that open a part of you like
a long lost key.

Though before long, that key rusts.
Kisses that previously elevated are rejected,
the hand pushing them away
may as well be made from blades

as they slice out of you,
the glow felt inside.

Other kisses you can’t remember
or are unsure if they happened at all.
Drink plays a part, where you can’t remember if
there was a kiss at the train station or just a goodbye.

Normality resumes after and it isn’t spoken of either way,
the cycle repeats and you can’t ever quite figure out
if things are real or imagined
sometimes the dreams, if nothing else, are a nice respite,

an imagined moment of pleasure.
Guilty? Maybe, but then you
wake up and that matters not
and leaves you with its own type of hangover.

One day, you find yourself at a gig,
with a girl you’ve known for a while,
and the kiss there is unexpected
but strangely natural,

one of those moments where everything seems to stop.
Not a lot silences music for you.
You even hear it when you go to sleep,
but that stopped it for a moment.

Those kisses, continued, on and on
for years. Passionate at times,
comforting at others.
Ultimately life-saving.

They change over time too.

Then someone else comes along,
smaller. They depend on you.
The kisses you give them
offer support, a loving nourishment

helping them to grow.

They feel magical,
imparted with a different type of love
that took you by surprise.
A role unexpectedly yours,

that you'll never change.

The day-to-day kisses,
with the wife and kids,
before you leave for work or
some other errand

they occupy the same sort of space
of those as a child that your Mum would
give you before you went to school
almost routine, automated

but missed when not there.

A feeling that always haunts and lingers too,
giving a kiss before bed, before departing
for any of life's adventures or necessary side-quests,
knowing that one time it could be the last.

It's not something you can actively guard against,
the reaper doesn't always announce his presence
and so the only real preparation
is to just keep giving those kisses.

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