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I crave touch. And my very favorite touch is the touch of lips. There's something thrillingly delightful about lips. Specifically, kissing. I love to kiss. When the opportunity is afforded me, I kiss frequently. Playfully, tenderly, passionately, sweetly, interspersing nuzzles, whispers, nibbles, licks and giggles. Kissing is amazing and beautiful and intimate.

Compared to my friends at the time, I was a late bloomer when it came to kissing. I was 13 and despite several illicit games of Truth or Dare and Spin the Bottle, I'd somehow managed to avoid anything more than kisses on cheeks, neck nuzzles and booty rubs. I had a boyfriend at the time. A boy two years my senior who made every effort to get us time and space alone. I, on the other hand, endeavored to do the same but in... less obvious ways. I spent a large amount of time at church and, at the time, he and I didn't attend the same school. He'd started showing up at my church with his boys (didn't we all travel in packs) and, eventually, our groups melded into a group of couplings. Youth retreats and rallies and camping were events that brought on renewed excitement when you knew you could sit next to your boo and canoodle during travel to and fro. It was at one such event that my first kiss finally happened!

We were at an event late. Meals had been eaten. Laughs had been had. I was basking in the glow of teen happiness when I suddenly had an urgent need for my lip balm. It was pineapple-mango scented and flavored and I kept having to reapply it because I was constantly licking it off my lips. Somehow, I'd left this new wonder in the van and I wandered to the parking lot to retrieve it. Walking back to the building, with my lips slathered in deliciousness, I encountered my boyfriend. The sun had just dipped below the horizon and the lights in the parking lot were beginning to flicker on. He pulled me into a hug and I eagerly leaned into him. I'm not sure what compelled me to look up into his face. Just like that, with the tilt of my head and the briefest inhale, I'd embarked on my first kiss. It was like many of life's other firsts, exciting, terrifying, full of fumbles, but triumphant. I remember pulling back and smacking my lips together. He tasted of Winterfresh gum and now I did, too. I wondered if he was tasting pineapple-mango. He looked at me expectantly and it occurred to me that I had no  clue what was supposed to happen after a kiss in real life. My TV/movie research and practice had not prepared me for what was supposed to happen after the kiss. I wracked my brain and kept coming up empty.

So.

I thanked him. And because he was barely more well-versed in life as I was, he said, "You're welcome."

And that is the story of my first delicious kiss. My technique has improved since that evening. I rarely use flavored lip products and I don't know when I last tasted Winterfresh. But when I think of that gum and when I think of flavored lip balm, I always fondly remember that first kiss.

Unsaid Words

I sat quietly, sitting in the middle of a scene from which I was inadvertently excluded. My mother was telling a joke that she clearly found hilarious, as she dissolved into peals of laughter before she'd arrived at the punch line. I watched my brothers roll their eyes in amusement and knew that if I could see myself an indulgent smile would be playing over my lips. I looked at my mother, still mid-laugh but pretending to be grumpy that none of us were laughing as uproariously as she was. Clearly, our senses of humor weren't sophisticated enough for her caliber of joke. I had something I needed to tell her. And I worried that after we talked, she would never look like this again. Happy. No, more than happy---joyous. An abiding joy that resided within her, regardless of what else she went through.

My mother has encouraged me to do things that would create happy memories. While we were growing up she would spend hours regaling us with stories from her childhood and stories her parents had told her from their childhoods. As a young girl, I worried that I wouldn't live my life well enough to regale my future progeny with such enthralling stories. I still worry about that. But these memories are shocking in their unpleasantness. I'm not sure why it's so important to me to talk with my mother about these things.

I've always felt that my mother and I were at odds. She loved me, of that I had no doubt. However, it was clear that our personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Our rough patch began when I was 16 and it endured until I was 24. I was determined to assert my personality but after a lifetime of never seeing this sassy, defiant, cold-eyed side of me, my mother felt certain that what she was seeing wasn't really me.

It was. I'd just finally found my voice. But the voice I'd found was still unable to tell my mother the things I should have told her when I was 7, 8, and 9 years old. I couldn't speak the things that had plagued me at 15 and 19. The years went on and I found myself choking over all the unsaid words. Every conversation was a minefield and I was constantly and obviously tense. Who am I to dash her knowledge of me to the ground? To dig up my long-buried hurts and display them before her like a dog with a favorite bone? What right do I have?

Two teenage boys, the sons of family friends who we hadn't seen in over 15 years. Their names were as ashes, dusted out of my mind as though a great wind had swept them away. Separate occasions, years apart, but somehow mirroring one another in the terror, the confusion, the guilt that welled up within me. I locked it all away for years, tucking it neatly into a chest that was welded shut. I had no need to revisit. Ever.

It happened again. Someone I trusted, someone who'd been a safe harbor. We were in what I thought was a safe space. There, he pressed his advantage. The chest cracked, the contents seeped out. They'd been stewing, rotting for years. An ingredient added...

I was lost. I was to blame. I had to be. Something was wrong with me. 
The last time it happened I determined it would be the last. And it was. Unlike any time before, this man intended to press to completion. And he took. The last time it happened I determined it would be the last. And it was. Any other encounter would be on my terms and my terms only.

I looked at my mother with laughter in her eyes, telling a story she'd told us dozens of times and singing a song she'd learned as a child. I searched her face, searing everything about her in my memory. Because if I uncorked this bottle, spilled out my hurts, sipped the bitter elixir and faced the aftereffects... this would be the last time I saw her this way.