I saw you last week.
You were sitting in your car and I was in mine.
The nostalgic scent of your leather seats
and cologne crawled up my nostrils
and my body soaked into the beat of that
Mac Miller song you said reminded you of me.
You were smiling down at your phone.
My eyes fell to the subtle glow in my lap
and I could’ve sworn I saw your name
pop up on my lock screen.
For a second,
I was caught between your lips.
Then I remembered the first time I got to kiss them.
Our first kiss was crossing faultlines,
convincing ourselves that we would not fall.
We were in your car stopped at a red light.
The illumination melted onto our blushing cheeks
as the rain did the same with the pavement.
You said I was the only girl to grace your lips.
This was last September.
Our second kiss felt like running from home;
reckless and dangerously liberating.
It was the one that forced my breath to surrender to you.
Our third kiss was constructive;
goosebumps blossoming on our skin
like pylon cones guarding the side of the street.
We leaned towards each other like
the heavy necks of a bulldozer.
Our eyes dug deep enough into one
another’s to plant a foundation.
We were building something.
Our fourth kiss was starting to seem like a bad decision,
but damn, it looked so beautiful.
Then again, I kissed you with my eyes closed.
Our fifth kiss tasted like leaving
and lingered with me longer than you did.
It was the first time being with you felt like squeezing
a puzzle piece in a void I knew would never fit,
but I tried anyway.
Our sixth kiss was like jotted down words on a sticky note.
Like maybe if write it down,
I will always remember how your lips crashed into
mine in the event I will not be able to feel them again.
This is how I birthed poetry.
Our seventh kiss seeped black smoke from
between our teeth and left us as a casualty
neither of us claimed responsibility for.
You blamed it on the flames while
I whispered your name.
Why the hell do you think I still write about it?
We were a mystery I still have no answer to.
On our eighth kiss,
my ribs cascaded into a pile of embers.
I knew our fire would cease to burn.
Perhaps the flames had never drawn breath at all.
But I could see you coughing up ashes.
Something had to be burning.
We have the same gasoline residing in our lungs.
Maybe I didn’t set you ablaze,
but you did me.
As for our ninth kiss,
that was the one that would never exist.
September came again with the same
leather texture in the passenger seat,
the warm scent of cologne,
and green-hued eyes,
except for this time,
it was a different pair of lips I was kissing.
Fast-forward to February:
the trees have grown vacant after shedding their
beautiful pieces throughout the winter.
I could not help but look at my own naked branches
and remember what he had taken
from me these bitter months.
Does that make you both a thief?
I saw you last week.
You looked like you always did;
someone that was never mine.
Funny how you and him look so much alike.
