The first time I kissed a boy,
it was as if a bomb had exploded,
as if its timer had been set
by some manic puppeteer
in a rare mood of giving
to go off
at fifteen years and some odd days,
designed to detonate the second
his lips touched mine.

The newness
of being inside another's mouth,
to be that close
to someone’s thoughts,
to have my cover clumsily blown
away, teeth to teeth,
tongue to tongue,
such a blinding blast of
of intimacy and awkwardness,
normalcy,
the collateral damage.

I walked from that wonderful wreckage
with my expectations in pieces,
the taste of his cinnamon gum
the shrapnel left lodged in my head.

((((Kat))))

Hi (((Bill))) - thank you!

for some it is explosives
nitroglycerin and shock
they play with dynamite