Kiss and tell

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T. asks me about my first kiss, and I have to reach way back. It seems so long ago.

But, to me, every first kiss is a first kiss.

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T. counters that only one kiss can be the first kiss. Mine was age 13 or 14, at a summer camp that was really an enrichment program in small town Georgia.

Her name was Penny (short for Penelope) and it was innocent and sweet and memorable and indescribable.

But it’s relegated to childhood, with little toys and neighborhood friends you’ll likely never see again.

It contrasts starkly with the kisses of adulthood, where one thing led to another, and it’s all entangled in the complexities of sex and relationships.

And yet …

To me, every first kiss is a first kiss. If done properly and with the right someone, that first kiss is like falling in love. You begin again, you are reborn, the slate is wiped clean.

In your heart, it is the first of many. The rest can blur together, but that initial intimacy, when caution is thrown to the wind, when souls caress ever so briefly, is the one you take with you to the grave.

And while I shouldn’t kiss and tell, according to the proper gentleman handbook, you cannot but help to shout from the rooftops and tell the world, this girl kissed me. I kissed this girl. We kissed, we kissed, we kissed.

That first kiss can knock you back, push you forward, and never leave you the same. She asks me about my first kiss, but I can’t help but think only of the next one.

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