She would always say that none of the kisses that had passed were her first. To her, they didn't count, but instead were washed away by the waves of time and what I presume was a lack of consent on her part. When words such as "shove" and "stick" are used to describe a kiss, it becomes easy to assume such things.
Through her, I came to see water, for she was just that. Lovely, free, without a care. A damp breeze coming up from the ocean waves: one where you can taste the salt and feel the texture of the water caress your body. This is how I felt when looking at her. To me, she was the ocean.
Once I was able to understand her as the water, I understood what a different thing it was to be just that. We respect the ocean, the waves, even worship them. The ocean is to us what an apple is to a fruit fly. Boundless, beautiful, but also greater than we can ever hope to understand. She was all of these things but wrapped up in herself, a human-shaped carrying case full to the brim with all she had to offer. In her mind, she was but a damaged vessel with holes leaking out what I knew her to be. To her, she was but a bottle.
Bottles know no respect but are instead emptied or drained to leave only an empty shell. Or they are left broken and shattered like ice. I needn't ask her how those past kisses made her feel, whether they made her feel like the ocean or like the bottle. Understandably, she wasn't the biggest fan of plastic.
Our first kiss was at the water. She lied on her stomach on a wooden barricade that separated us from the sea, her body curving up and down like a heartbeat in a hospital; her breathing just as rare and beautiful.
Her hair shown like the setting sun above and her face dotted with the many distant suns to come once the latter one went to sleep or perished. I ran my fingers up and down the back of her body, feeling goosebumps form on her bare skin. The smell of her mixed with the salt of the ocean made me shiver against the warm.
She wore blackened jeans that shone brightly in the sun. Her deep blue shirt rolled up from her waist to give me a better access to her skin. An equally blue hat topped her figure, a reminder of what she could be; what she was, is to me. She sighed as the cool air from the water blew up and over the crests of the waves, to the white sand and then up and over the curves of her body. Her hair moved slightly in the wind, a sail trying to catch a breeze.
I recall standing like that for only a few minutes, though it felt as though I had been there for hours simply running my fingers up and down her spine, playing the sweet music. Then, she sat up in a moment that felt as though it lasted without end and for only a mere second all wrapped up in one. I placed my hands on her waist and pulled her closer, just so I could smell the freeness of the water exuding both from her and from around us.
Her eyes were an old Heineken bottle, both sharpened by being broken and smoothened by years of the tides rolling both over and through them. I felt her breath on my face as she slid her hand up the back of my shirt, trying to see whether the flock had grown and migrated from her to me.
As we got closer, she began to solidify from water. I could see her lips as they froze over. Her glossy eyes like that of a china doll's, frozen in time. I held her like this for a moment. Trying to savor her warmth despite her cold, both of which melded into my own.
When we separated, she melted once more, escaped her body shaped bottle. Looking back on it, I often find myself wondering whether I was her first. Whether she believed it. I suppose it would almost make sense. Those kisses that passed never counted; the ones that tasted the smooth salt water. Perhaps the lack of salt in my mouth, to her, was all she needed.
