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bigentity · 4 years

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on the subject of kissing

on a sunny day in the first week of february 2020, i felt my heart flutter as i walked past a group of pink-clad girls at a booth in a busy spot on sdsu campus.

“want a kiss?” one girl asked me. confused, i stopped in my tracks. in the girl’s half-outstretched hand was a hershey’s kiss in pink metallic foil, and a pink piece of paper which read:

“happy healthy relationships week!

healthy relationship characteristic #6: good communication

each partner should speak honestly and openly to avoid miscommunication. if one person needs to sort out his or her feelings first, the other partner should respect those wishes and wait until he or she is ready to talk.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)”

my heart beat quickened as i read through this. i loved love. since childhood i’d always adored valentine’s day. this note felt like a protective omen, an emblem of the possibility of true, safe love. earlier that day, the usual flashbacks of recent past heartbreaks (romantic, platonic, and otherwise) had come over me as though i were rewinding a mental VCR tape: names, faces, songs, smells, varying degrees of emotional fallout. in contrast, here was a tangible reminder that love did not have to hurt.

remembering i’d been asked a question, i responded without thinking: “for a second i thought you were offering me, like, a kiss on the cheek.”

though the girl was clearly in the middle of another conversation by the time i’d come back down to earth, she laughed nervously. “um, we’re actually raising awareness for--”

“i’ll give you a kiss on the cheek!”

the voice belonged to her friend, who was nearby, also giving away candy and slips with healthy relationship characteristics on them. her pink shirt was knotted at the side, which slightly distorted the three greek letters printed on the front.

the fluttering came back with a vengeance. ask and it is given. turning my head, i slowly stuck my face out towards her. she kissed my cheek and pulled her face away slowly, as if giving me time to count her freckles or take in the scent of her shampoo.

i stood still, feet planted in the same spot. “can i kiss you too?”

she drew her face towards me, and i lightly pressed my lips to her cheek. we looked at each other for another moment, briefly basking in the intimacy we had just shared. the sunlight seemed to feel a bit warmer.

not two seconds of this passed before shyness resurfaced. face flushed, hands trembling just a bit, i began to flee the scene of the crime. waving goodbye, i said, “i hope you have a good day!”

“you too!” the girl was still grinning. two of her fellow sorority girls, who’d been nearby and had likely seen the whole thing, laughed softly and waved.

always one to try and extract significance from experiences that catch my attention, i thought about this incident all day. such a purely random moment of intimacy with a stranger could not be counted among fleeting coincidences. i liked to believe such an occurrence of kindness could send vibrations out that could be felt by other human beings if they were receptive to it. among the chattering in my mind, one message stood out to me, spoken in a soft but strong voice: “you are always holding, and being held by, others.” i imagined ripples forming across the koi pond that lay at the bottom of the hill, below the lawn that i laid in on nice days.

only a few days after exchanging kisses with that girl, i kissed someone else. like my kisses with the girl in pink, it felt like raw human compassion expressed through touch.

this kiss, however, differed in a fundamental way. it was my first kiss with a person who i’d been wanting to kiss for a long time. so in that sense, it was more intense; it was charged with the friction created by two people who deeply want each other, and their skin touching and their dopamine receptors lighting up like thousands of people putting up lighters and phone flashlights at a concert in a huge arena. this was a kiss that stopped people in time, forcing them to do nothing except kiss and feel everything - especially the healing qualities in giving and receiving this touch, and how achingly human it all was.

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