October 13th
His lips must’ve been born in winter but I did it anyway and I'm proud of that. The boy
had pot-holed dimples a collection of white teeth so perfect you could tell God
got to him first.
In a dark room, I assembled myself the way I imagined any girl should: arms up in position and pregnant with waiting. He kissed me and I waited for the flood. I waited for God to gift me my own desire for the angsty snow to melt between us for the muscles in my neck to howl in an octave I've never known for the next chapter of my womanhood to appear and none of that happened.
When you get stood up by your own first kiss you feel like nothing belongs to you—
not even the promise of magic. Love is a rumor like Santa Clause. It lives in a pretty house that nobody has access to.
I must have had a bad past life I must have practiced on my hand too much. My mouth is a terrible orchestra the music it makes is foreign and uneven I am a thrift store of broken piano keys a visitor looking at myself from some window far, far away. I can't turn 17 and have nothing to say when someone asks if I know the choreography of heat.
October 28th
Laura's lips looked like two oceans put together on purpose like something you're supposed to get lost in and not know the beginning of and there's a whole world in writing that out loud for the first time. (I hope nobody reads this, it was her idea)
I sat down on her couch looking like a good example of desperation. I wanted to know if my body was capable of speaking to another body in a language we already knew. I wanted to know if I could inherit my magic. If this doom was a prank caller or if it meant I was gonna be alone for the rest of my life.
My mouth was mine and I know because I gave it to her. We kissed and my blood became
a congregation of songs. I wrote myself on the inside of a girl's mouth and I didn't even care. Every nerve in my body sprouted legs, my spine founded a country of fireworks—this is the only thing better than the Thriller album. Ever.
Every fizzle of me that was, now has a name. My heart isn't some Hail Mary of a prayer or the secret apology I keep. One day I'll write poems about the woman who loved me so deep I grew color in my bones. I know when they ask me about my first kiss, I'm gonna say I leaned in with all of my skin and only got half of it back I'm gonna say I work real good I'm gonna say that some things are only felt the second time around.
2015
Regular
Contemporary
2023
LGBTQ+ Experience
Love & Relationships
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Metaphor
a comparison between two unrelated things through a shared characteristic
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”