The Kiss
It was December 1983, the end of the fall semester, the end of your final semester. You were graduating, going home and getting married. All in rapid succession. Your life spread out before you like a lover’s welcoming embrace.
I was in the kitchen at “the hotel.” Playing cards and drinking and celebrating the end of final exams. I’m not sure how well I was playing cards, but I believe I succeeded quite brilliantly in drinking. But then, it was college, I did that a lot. Drank, I mean. We all did. We were all, I believe, quite good at it.
I was smitten with you from the start. Amazing now, to think of how open my heart was in college, how many of you crept your way into it.
I remember talking with you at parties and at odd nights of spontaneous gatherings at “the hotel” and “the frat house” (which wasn’t a frat house at all), or even that dreadful red-velvet wallpapered bar by the University. I remember you laughing at me for not realizing you were Jewish, for merely finding your last name Germanic.
I remember sitting with you at a party one night on a stairway. We were speaking of something intense, as everything is intense when you’re young and in college. I remember finding our bodies leaning too close to each other, and pulling mine back. I remember my eyes focusing on the shape of your lips, the dark and endless depths of your eyes, the timbre of your voice, the line of your jaw. I remember your eyes staring deeply into mine. I remember, in short, wanting you.
That night in December, you were in a hurry, rushing from place to place, tying up lose ends before you left us. I hated to see you go. When you came back into the kitchen, I was watching you. Between drinks and card plays. And then you called me over to you by the stove. I remember it so clearly I can still see the way the light over the kitchen table spread out to you, the shadows dancing against the back of the ancient stove. I walked over, expecting… I’m not sure. Almost anything but what happened. With a thrown apology to Jeremy, my fiancé, you took me suddenly in your arms and bent me backwards and kissed me. Long and deep.
And then – much too soon – it was over.
I did not want it to be over.
“Give me a kiss to build a dream on
and my imagination will build upon that kiss.
Oh, sweet heart, I ask no more than this,
a kiss to build a dream on.
Give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination will make that moment live.
Give me what you alone can give:
A kiss to build a dream on.”
For 22 years I’ve built dreams upon that kiss.
I’ve searched for hints of what happened to you. I know your marriage to Katy didn’t last. I know you run marathons, and kayak, and I know you married again. I don’t know the fate of your second marriage. The last time I spoke to Perry he said that last he heard from you, it was on rocky ground, that you talked of running off to Austin. Is your second wife, too, gone from the picture?
In dreams I walk through the mist until I reach and tell you, at last, that I love you. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world to say to someone you haven’t seen in 22 years.
My heart remembers.
I was in the kitchen at “the hotel.” Playing cards and drinking and celebrating the end of final exams. I’m not sure how well I was playing cards, but I believe I succeeded quite brilliantly in drinking. But then, it was college, I did that a lot. Drank, I mean. We all did. We were all, I believe, quite good at it.
I was smitten with you from the start. Amazing now, to think of how open my heart was in college, how many of you crept your way into it.
I remember talking with you at parties and at odd nights of spontaneous gatherings at “the hotel” and “the frat house” (which wasn’t a frat house at all), or even that dreadful red-velvet wallpapered bar by the University. I remember you laughing at me for not realizing you were Jewish, for merely finding your last name Germanic.
I remember sitting with you at a party one night on a stairway. We were speaking of something intense, as everything is intense when you’re young and in college. I remember finding our bodies leaning too close to each other, and pulling mine back. I remember my eyes focusing on the shape of your lips, the dark and endless depths of your eyes, the timbre of your voice, the line of your jaw. I remember your eyes staring deeply into mine. I remember, in short, wanting you.
That night in December, you were in a hurry, rushing from place to place, tying up lose ends before you left us. I hated to see you go. When you came back into the kitchen, I was watching you. Between drinks and card plays. And then you called me over to you by the stove. I remember it so clearly I can still see the way the light over the kitchen table spread out to you, the shadows dancing against the back of the ancient stove. I walked over, expecting… I’m not sure. Almost anything but what happened. With a thrown apology to Jeremy, my fiancé, you took me suddenly in your arms and bent me backwards and kissed me. Long and deep.
And then – much too soon – it was over.
I did not want it to be over.
“Give me a kiss to build a dream on
and my imagination will build upon that kiss.
Oh, sweet heart, I ask no more than this,
a kiss to build a dream on.
Give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination will make that moment live.
Give me what you alone can give:
A kiss to build a dream on.”
For 22 years I’ve built dreams upon that kiss.
I’ve searched for hints of what happened to you. I know your marriage to Katy didn’t last. I know you run marathons, and kayak, and I know you married again. I don’t know the fate of your second marriage. The last time I spoke to Perry he said that last he heard from you, it was on rocky ground, that you talked of running off to Austin. Is your second wife, too, gone from the picture?
In dreams I walk through the mist until I reach and tell you, at last, that I love you. As if it’s the most natural thing in the world to say to someone you haven’t seen in 22 years.
My heart remembers.
posted by Cala Lily at Monday, December 12, 2005
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