NEPTUNE BURNS

trigger warning

TW //: I'm not sure what this falls under as this is something that happened years ago to me (and is only a fraction of it) but i know whatever happened was wrong. It is sexual in nature so please be advised.

do you remember the first time you kissed me? there were melting icicles hanging from just behind my eyelashes trapped in curled thin black hair that brushed against the tops of my cheeks as I scrunched my eyes shut and tried to fit my lips to yours
I had been reading poetry about first loves at that time
I would whisper to myself at night under my blankets that you must taste like tangerines and honey, that you would have the softest lips with small dips of cracked skin that would scratch against mine, that you would smell like pine trees after the rainfall with a misty muted aroma that would envelope me in a foreign comfort
but I wasn't crying tears of joy from finally knowing what being kissed felt like all I could imagine were the boys who had tried to take my kisses by force

the boy in ninth grade gym class who had watched me squirm as I sat with huge shorts and an extra large t-shirt
I had attempted to drown my body in stretchy huge fabrics, anything to not be visible, to not have shape, to be nothing but clothes hanging on body hanging on air
I can still feel him dart his hands out in front of everyone and grab my chest, can feel him twist at me, try to rip my chest from me
I can remember pushing him away and no one looking at me
I can remember never wanting a boy to touch me again
I can hear my mother saying I will forget this scratching of grubby fingers on my thirteen year old chest can forget it felt dirty it felt violating it was public humiliation without laughter just silent screams and hushed bystanders
can hear my father try to put his hand on my knee to reassure me and shrink myself into nothing because I'm not over it don't touch me
can remember being told it could have been worse

it could have been worse

but for me it felt like being detached from a body part, my chest wasn't mine it was his now, and I have spent years trying to scrub away what it felt like to be scratched and twisted and watched
for me it ruined the thought of what pressing chest to chest to you would feel like: no cloud nine, no sunset illuminating orange hues tasting of a swirled berry juice, no gentle gasps of newness

I closed my eyes and tried to think of your lips being rougher than mine - stronger, more assured, less flighty and trembly
I tried to bury myself into our first kiss
you tasted of raspberries we had just eaten under your grandmother's old oak tree, you tasted of spring and home made jam with just a hint of mint leaves, you tasted of summer heat in the spring rain
I wanted to fit myself into your arms and forget the boy who made me feel so ashamed

it could have been worse / it could have been worse / but I still felt so wrong / I still apologized to my reflection every morning / I still couldn't hug my dad without feeling that boy's hands / I am so sorry

do you remember how I cried under that oak tree after our first kiss?
how I held the grass so tightly, wound it so angrily into my palms - that it gave me cuts across my palms?
remember how my blood became droplets resembling the raspberries you tasted of?

because I remember thinking I was held up by a fence back in ninth grade
being pressed against chain links and thinking the rattling it made as my back hit it was the sound of my death march - of a rattlesnake come to bite me
I felt a pressure on my chest and oh why why can I feel him pressing against me trying to touch me
another boy took my hand, pried it from its claw, tried to make the blood on it become spit, tried to make me touch him touch him touch him
and when I finally kicked him away from me i fell to the dusty ground
no grass was around to prove I was alive, no trees to pump oxygen in my lungs, my palms were bruised and red and he just kept saying I wasn't even worth the risk

do you remember our first kiss?
how I drew my fingertips across your skin and clothes to map out the geography of the body of the girl who loved you but could not bare to touch you? how I held icicles in my eyes and wore my shame with the tangled knots in my hair - the inebriated swollen redness of my lips - the tear stains traced down my cheeks with dirt. do you remember leaning over to grab a raspberry, pressing a gentle kiss to it, then pressing it to my lips? because I do.

it was the first time my chest didn't feel heavy with hungry hands or a stuttering heartbeat
it was the kiss no poet could write about. your lips were soft and gentle and it was never about being touched skin to skin, in that moment you made me feel I could be worth more than the scars others left along my body.

do you remember me kissing you for the first time?
my chest knew it would never know what it was to be whole - to not cower and shake, but it was willing to let you fill its emptiness with spring kisses
I was willing to let the icicles in my eyes defrost in the summer haze of raspberry brushes

my mistake was in not believing you when you warned the hollowness would return, I forgot with winter comes the dreams of heavy hands and no kind boy with gentle hands and rough lips

Dedicated to unknownpIeasures your writing is always so raw and so beautiful; I am trying to take a page from your greatness and being as vulnerable as I can be. Hopefully it is half as lovely as you and your work.