The Second Kiss: Prose (ca. 2008?)

The second kiss finally awakened my toes.


We walked together, he wrapping in his rough hand the three smallest fingers of mine.
We laughed, and he taunted me.
I called him out and he just nodded and surrendered.

We walked smoothly, as if being pulled across the icy sidewalk by a horizontal gravity, me ahead, leading by my three smallest fingers.

“May I kiss you?” he asked, and then moved forward, his hand on my face. Two warm seconds.
I slept on.
We walked down lanes lined with icy pines.
Stepping past offices with glass doors like aquamarines.
We didn’t laugh.

“. . . if I like someone,” I finished lamely, trying to be real, trying to be me and not the gibbering fool inside me who loved only his hands, and his eyes, and the weight of his gaze.
He stopped, and I turned when my three smallest fingers did not follow me.
His warmth was around my shoulders now, his eyes in mine.
“And do you like me?”

I cannot see the point in games. I do not now, nor did I in that moment, knowing that to many, the truth frightens as if it had some power to force their limbs,
to force their lips, or bind their hearts against their minds.

“Very much,” and he was silent, and smiled his fearless smile.
I led, walking and babbling quietly our first-date chatter until we reached my doorway. I did not ask, but reached up and took the second kiss.

And that is when my toes awoke.

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