They say the third time’s the charm, but I guess with you it took five shots. The goosebumps came with the first one, the lack of breath appeared the second time around. The third kiss punched my stomach, and I can’t remember the fourth one because I was too drunk. But the fifth one. Oh, the fifth one. The fifth ones.
It wasn’t just a one kiss that I could single out and analyse in isolation. It was a long list of all the kisses I gave and I never gave before, smashed together, like a summation. It was a never-ending enumeration. And I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t want to either. I felt like your body contained all the answers no one had provided before to the questions I had stopped asking. And suddenly, they were there, running through your veins and scattered on your skin next to all the freckles on your shoulders. And I felt greedy, and I really thought they were still going to be there in the morning, so I told you we should get some sleep. And so we did. And the answers flew away. And I pushed you aside, or at least that’s what you say. And I woke up with more questions and one cliff separating me from you and what we had been at night from what we were in the morning. And since then every kiss you gave me felt like meeting an old friend from high school for five seconds and having to say goodbye to them before you actually engage in a conversation. And I sometimes doubt if it was actually necessary to get some sleep that night. I ask myself why I told you to stop. I wonder what would have happened if I had kept on kissing you for five more minutes or an hour or the whole night. I wonder if somehow I could have managed to catch all those answers and take them home with me, so I wouldn’t have to bother you again, so I wouldn’t feel like there’s something I need that I can only find in you. I wonder if I will ever find them again floating over your body or pouring out of your skin. I wonder if I will find them in someone else’s fingertips or covering the arms of some guy I haven’t met yet. Mostly, I hope I find those answers inside my own body, filling my own lungs, streaming down my own veins, pumping my own heart. I hope they are here, waiting for me to find them. Waiting, patiently, for something to shake me so they can fall on my lap. Waiting for me to shake myself.
