First kisses always taste like

new beginnings and last kisses

always taste of regret.

 

When I was younger my mother

took me outside while it rained

and we danced and spun and

that was the day that I realized

what beauty truly was because

the rain on my skin felt like

butterflies kissing the tips of the flowers and

my mother’s laughter sounded like

the bells that give angels their wings.

 

When I first met The Boy Who Always Smiled

he said my name like it tasted like cinnamon

and I memorized the inflection in his voice when

he spoke to me and painted a portrait of it,

stowed it away in the back of my mind and

pulled it out whenever the bright yellow sun

took refuge behind the clouds because

I knew he’d tasted enough pain on his tongue

to know (whether I believed it or not) that I

was something sweet.

 

The first time I saw The Girl Who Powered Through

it had been three years, her hair had grown back in

thin and wispy, covered by a pink ballcap and she sat alone.

Today she is my best friend and she tells me how she wants

my strength and my confidence but she is the bright yellow sun

peeking through the clouds and I am showered daily in her light.

 

The first time my heart was broken by a boy

with an attention span that could be broken like glass

and promises easily torn like paper, I stayed on the phone for hours

with a friend, pacing back and forth in my backyard

recounting every word he said and wondering what I’d done wrong.

But then I looked up and realized that the sky was

as blue as I’d ever seen it and I realized that my tears were only good for

watering the pretty green grass beneath my toes.

 

Each day I look around me to such beautiful people

and I realize that the world is a beautiful place.

There is sadness and injustice but there is always beauty.

The world is a place of first loves, first steps, first kisses.

 

First kisses always taste like new beginnings

and last kisses always taste like

something better coming along.