First Kiss - Nov 19 2021

 

First Kiss

Nov 19 2021

We were not touchy-feely.

No one mentioned love,

and certainly never coupled it 

with the pronoun you.

Words were not meant to clarify

but evade.

Silence was even better,

denial, a perfect refuge.

So you learn to project

defend

withdraw.

Intimacy is threatening,

a distressingly alien terrain.

Instead, you're always on high alert;

hyper-vigilant, and armoured well,

elbows sharpened

shoulders tense.

So the first time she said I love you

and you somehow said it back

the sensation was thrilling.

As if by mouthing the words

you had violated some taboo,

transgressed

your own impervious shell.

As if you'd surrendered to danger,

then found it was all an illusion

and there was really nothing to fear.

Your soft underbelly exposed

and there had been no death blow,

no hidden dagger

slipped deftly under your ribs.

Then you managed to say it again,

tongue thick

lips dry with anxiety.

Which she soothed with her own,

rising up on her toes

like a brightly mischievous sprite

as if a warm wet kiss

was the most natural thing in the world.

And for the first time

you felt something electric

light up every synapse

send heat up your spine.

And now for something completely different.

This started out as an uncomfortably confessional poem, and it seems as if, very predictably, I quickly deflected any possible inference that it might be personal: not only turning it into something innocuous and romanticized, but also by reverting -- not even getting past the 2nd stanza! -- to the 2nd person. Which as the poem progresses, gains ever more distance from the intimacy with which it began. Nevertheless, I would feel both dishonest and cowardly if I were to eliminate that single tell-tale We from the opening stanza.