A Kiss
Ross Rader
Eighth grade dance, we kissed, that was a long time ago. Once, I saw a mother kiss her baby on the forehead. I was surprised at how soft your lips were. Were my lips that soft, almost unreal? It was a soft kiss, an understanding, but that was a long time ago. Once, I saw a mother kiss her baby on the forehead, but that was different, a deeper understanding. You used to keep journals, black spiral bound notebooks, and I used to tease you, saying that I would read everything, everything, so you hid them all, all of them. I wonder if you wrote about our kiss. Once, I saw a mother kiss her baby on the forehead. Once, I saw this mother running to her car. Once, while I was driving through Providence, a car hit the guardrail, kicked up dirt and gravel, formed a cloud, and heaved onto its side. This mother was thrown from her car, but she ran and reached for her baby through a broken window, the crumpled door. This mother kissed her baby’s forehead, only once. It was a simple kiss. Just enough pressure, a prayer, a plea to God. She could hardly breathe because she was shaking. That’s not what our kiss was like. Our kiss was not that simple. Our kiss was not that pure. It was nervous, calculated, too soft. Once, I saw a mother kiss her baby on the forehead. Her lips were pale, grass protesting in her hair, blood drained from her face, groping to find her heart, her stomach a knot so tight, a star might have died within.
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Ross Rader lives in Pittsburgh, PA. His work has appeared in Word Riot, Foliate Oak, and elimae.