I am kissing someone who wants to know why my mouth tastes like sorry and I can’t find the words to tell him that I’m drowning in the handfuls of love that have been handed back to me in a game of tug-of-war that I never signed up for. I am kissing someone and he is choking on the ashes of all the burnt cities living in my throat and I don’t know how to say that I built them with my bare hands which haven’t stopped shaking since they went up in flames. I am kissing someone and he can feel the past tucked between my teeth, an old ache that pulses every time I tongue it. If I were going to be honest, this is what I would tell him:

that love, for me, is something I know exists but that I can’t quite wrap my head around- like gravity. And just like gravity, I’ve been testing love my whole life, falling through the air and spitting blood out with my baby teeth. I would tell him that love, to me, seems impossible. Once you have it, how do you ever let it go? Once you have it, how do you ever keep it? Love to me, is quiet- a warm hand playing with my hair when I have a headache and love to me, is loud, my god is it loud because when I love you, I will shout it from the rooftops, it will spill from my mouth like a summer storm, like a declaration of dependence, like a promise because call me naïve but love, to me, is a promise. That you’ll hold my hand when the monsters crawl out from under my bed. That I’ll kiss your forehead and be your greatest friend. That you’ll listen to my secrets and my stories and only laugh when you’re supposed to because love, to me, is kind. Love is if I have to go, I’ll close the door softly on my way out. I’ll blow out the candles. I’ll send a letter.

I am kissing someone who wants to know why my mouth tastes like sorry and I’m telling him that I thought it was right last time but it wasn’t and it’s been years but I’m still picking out shards of truth from my bloodstream, fitting the pieces together to find where we went wrong. I’m telling him that love was not quiet or kind and love didn’t hold my hand. I’m telling him that love hurt in a way that love shouldn’t have because love should have known better. Love knew better.

Autumn has nudged summer out of the way and I am still kissing him because I told him all of these things and he didn’t laugh once. He is lighting candles inside my heart and staying awake by the glow. I am still kissing him and my mouth doesn’t taste like sorry. It tastes like something new. It tastes like love.