memory of a kiss

june 1st, 2021

i remember wanting to kiss him,
whoever he was that does not matter now,
and in the end when i kissed her instead,
that first kiss in the world
felt just as euphoric as i'd imagined.

i remember many kisses now.
kisses once sought after, so novel,
now tainted by time and wisdom;
very few untouched by the dark.

it was never his kisses that i remembered
when i thought of bloody lips,
unrequited passion, and the feeling of
movement on an otherwise still body.

i remember, now, every one of the kisses
that bled into me, marking me with tallies
that eventually would become scars
all because he deigned to steal one more from me.

i remember his kiss now, just the one,
for the One Kiss unlocks every memory
of every kiss that ever turned into cruelty
all so he could draw a line
through one more group of five.

* back to drops *