Saturday, November 26, 2005

I Miss The Kiss

I miss a kiss that means something.
A kiss that makes you forget about time.
Forget about the first time you skinned your knee.
The first time you ever wanted to kiss someone else.

I miss a kiss that fills you up inside.
That makes you wish you never had to leave.
The kind they write about in songs.
The kind they try to write about in songs.

A kiss can feel so empty with the wrong person.
That makes you wonder what's on t.v. later.
That allows you to realize that she's not the one.
A key into the heart.
It's the ultimate lie detector because it has nothing to lose.
Because there are always going to be another pair of lips.

I miss a kiss with that one person.
The one that makes you want to kiss again.
To make another song.
To forget each time because one will never be enough,
No matter how many times you try,
No matter how much you lie.

I miss the kiss.

6 comments:

m said...

Good stuff. Is that your own?

m said...

Brilliant. I can hear Elton John singing it now.

kagroo said...

I was thinking Hellen Keller could sing it. What a beautiful singer she would be.

christine said...

that's a beautiful post.

helen keller could mime the song. sloppy helen keller kisses for the crowd. mmm

Anonymous said...

This is not my comment, this is the precursor to my comment. I wrote my comment last night as a potential post, but decided that I didn't like it, but when I read Dan's poem I decided it was on point enough to throw out as a commnet to his poem. A reflection of what Dan is getting at. Maybe some direction for him. I really just found it interesting that we were having similar thoughts around the same time. This is the type of kiss that I share with my wife, and this comment was originally intended to convey that feeling, but I got lost along the way. (Refer to Dan's second stanza, last line.)

Anonymous said...

Kiss,

(Note that this does not make much sense, and is intentionally vague. Read it at your own risk, and don’t bitch at me because you don’t understand, cannot follow, or think it could be better. You are right, but I don’t care because it was not written for you anyway.)

In my life I’ve kissed three close and wonderful friends. While the transition of our emotional feelings of friendship into varying degrees of physical copulation did not end any of those relationships, I only still talk to one of those friends. I loved and still love each of these women, and think about them often. But two of them are gone, lost to the wind. I can only imagine that one still chases after Dean Moriarty’s father, the other would not know who he was even after you explained it to her. Incidentally, these two women literally lived within 100 feet of each other and had no idea that the other existed. Each would be disgusted with my love of the other. But they knew me and would only silently judge each other, they would each understand, and shake hands with a knowing nod had they ever met. I married the third.

What do you think of in that moment the very second before you kiss a woman for the very first time? Do your knees chatter, or does your stomach work up into knots? Is there a nervousness that simply fades with each new encounter? Is there an excitement that builds, in the further anticipation of potential sex? The last time I kissed a woman for the first time was on November 25, 1997. I know where I was sitting, I can remember the people who were sitting around me, and I remember the woman that I kissed. I remember feeling absolute calm. I was excited, but not in a horny excitement. I was happy, yet subdued and deliberate. I remember leaning in and gently embracing her soft lips with my own. It was new and it felt new and exciting. There is an excitement to new sex that cannot be overlooked. But past that simple fact of newness there was a familiarity, there was an unspoken realization that this would be my last first kiss for a very long time. I can still taste that first contact and can recall my heart’s flutters. These were not flutters of a nervous man, they were the flutters of someone who’d fallen in love. I’m certain of that fact. I can also recall placing my left hand on her right breast, my thumb on the bottom portion and my fingers at the top on her chest, then gently stroking down to the nipple. We kissed liked this for several minutes. And then we both sat back and laughed at each other before we kissed again.

This kiss was very different than any other first kiss that I’ve ever experienced. I’ve been very nervous before kissing a woman before, and my jitters have screwed it up before. There are women that I only wish that I could have kissed. I’ve been surprised by kissing a woman before, kissing a friend whom I loved. But entirely different from kissing the friend whom I loved in November 1997. I loved that friend who while we stood out in the rain, as lost and confused college students may tend to do, we spoke at length about nothing. She doubted herself as women do, and I frankly told her how she should feel; she grabbed me by the back of my neck and pulled my mouth into hers. Her rain soaked lips were amazing and beautiful. They tasted like merlot, though we were sober. We did in fact love each other, but I knew we were simply friends who would love and kiss others, even while we kissed each other. She sought after Dean’s dad to the West, where I thought I would find him in the East. When we met up again, it was I who realized he was an apparition never to be found except within one’s own sole. After the first time I kissed my wife, she told me that she didn’t know if she wanted to start dating me because she didn’t know if we would ever stop. I knew that we would never stop. When I kissed my friend in the rain, I knew that I loved her, and always would, that this kiss was perfect and wonderful, but that such a kiss would not lead to a great and lasting love.

I’ve also worked towards kissing a friend before. Setting out against a long and fruitful friendship and trying to turn it into sex. We promised that we would always be friends no matter the outcome of our attempts at love. But we never did love each other, and despite the fact that we were wonderful friends, that did not translate into a physical love. Hers were the most perfect breasts that I’ve ever held in all my life. And on November 24, 1997 we decided over the phone that we were better friends than lovers. I was in love, but not with her.

That night I took my friend out for her twenty-first birthday. We talked around a large table of friends as if were the only two people in the room. I have no recollection of what we discussed. We did a lot of talking all the time. Speaking on the phone for hours a night, until the sun rose and we went to class, only to meet in the afternoon and talk again. That night it was sealed for me, and I’ve never grown tired of that kiss. I never long for more than that kiss.