Kiss and Tell
Tanya –
Kindergarten
The first female to hold my hand. Mom only turned around and yelled, “Run fast, kid!” as we crossed busy streets, a Mother/Son Frogger video game. Though she was good enough to pick me up when the Camry clipped my leg. And my clubfoot, that would make any 8-iron envious, healed rather nicely. But Tanya’s hand was more secure than any joystick I ever grasped. That was the last time I felt in control: swinging her lovely limb up and down in tune to her happiness as she sang, “Red Rover Red Rover send Robert right over!” Robert’s beefy body did come right over, breaking our bond, brandishing me a bloody nose, the loveliness from that five year-old hand still imprinted in my sweaty, lonely palm.
Melissa –
Seventh grade
A junior high Belinda Carlisle. I was irrelevant, untouched like an argyle sweater beside a Members Only jacket. We walked to George’s Market after school and sucked on cherry Jolly Ranchers. In the alley where the frosty Mexican boys chilled on their shiny black Beach Cruisers, I professed my like. She told me to close my eyes. Her moist lips christened my blistered mouth, no longer unloved. Her friends followed us and screamed. Melissa just said, “I told you I’d kiss the dorkiest dude in school, so pay up bithchezzzzzz...” They handed her dollar bills and she hopped onto the handlebars of one of the Cholos in training. She changed her name to Shy Girl and they pedaled away deep into the Rio Grande, her fresh tatted teardrops tributaries to my teens.
Leslie –
Fourth year of junior college
My first. I rubbed the magazine cologne inserts all over my naked body, which resembled a hairy praying mantis, ignoring the painful paper-cuts before she snuck into the toolshed that was my bedroom. She told me she had to make sure before we consummated our relationship. She was a tunnel of dust and steam, and all I could think about was John Henry as I hammered my slight body into her during the most vigorous minute of my life. I lay on the cold cement, exhausted, feeling more like a power tool than a man, until she said, “That was AMAZING! It was like being with a woman. I always thought I was gay. Having sex with the most feminine guy I could find confirms it.” She put her clothes on and ran home. I found a flashlight and made shadow puppets, my nude profile sticking its small tongue out at me.
Wife –
Currently
She is an extended metaphor. The kind that never ends. Non-stop negativity. Curt sentence after another. The mother of my misgiving. She can’t tell me when my birthday is, or our anniversary, my favorite color, movie, cereal, baseball team or anything else that matters. She is the second-hand to my years of rejection – a wagging finger telling me that my emotions are tangled into words on a page, my existence stems from my fingertips, and I need to be more observant of beautiful things going on in the world around me. “Why don’t you ever write about butterflies, sunsets, or love? It’s time to start realizing you’re missing out on what’s important in life. Damn Poet. Why don’t you ever write about love…?”
– Daniel Romo teaches high school creative writing, and lives in Long Beach, CA. His recent poems can be found in Praxilla, Connotation Press,and The Acentos Review. He is an MFA candidate in poetry at Antioch University and will be featured this spring in an anthology of up and coming Southern California poets published by Moon Tide Press titled Pop Art: An Anthology of Orange County Poetry. More of his writing can be found at Peyote Soliloquies.
