Today we are featuring a poem by one of our fellow RWU students, Mayson O’Marra!
Big thanks to Mayson for letting us feature their work! Check out the poem below!
Can I Kiss You? By Mayson O’Marra
A childhood
of Disney movies
and a never-ending stream
of perfect fictional romances
aren’t
the best thing
to base your expectations
of reality on.
They certainly
didn’t prepare me
for the anxiety
of a real
first kiss.
My girlfriend and I
had talked
right after Valentine’s Day
about
wanting
to kiss each other.
We had been dating
for about
four months
at that point,
and despite
both of our
desire to,
neither of us
made a move.
I
was far too worried
about messing it up
to even
think
about trying.
(I don’t remember
what her reason was
anymore.)
So for two months,
we both waited
for the other
to work up the courage.
I wasn’t surprised
when it was
a TV show
that gave it to me.
It was on the bus ride home
on a Friday afternoon.
She had been asleep
on my shoulder
for the entire
thirty minute ride
from Hartford to Enfield.
After I gently shook her awake,
as the bus
was making its slow way
to the parking lot,
I turned to her,
my entire body
shaking,
and asked,
“Can I kiss you?”
She looked a little surprised,
but said yes…
and
leaned in first
when I couldn’t.
It wasn’t
the perfect
end of movie,
dramatic swell of music,
everything turns pink
first kiss.
It also wasn’t
the completely failed,
nosebleed inducing,
glasses knocked askew
first kiss.
It kinda just…
was.
But I was so
excited,
I couldn’t stop grinning
that whole weekend.
When I finally came down
from that first kiss high,
though,
I felt like a loser.
I had never seen
anyone
ask
before.
First kisses
always just
happened.
No asking,
no preamble—
other than
maybe
some tension-filled staring.
I knew
I shouldn’t
have felt
bad
about it,
but I did.
I thought
she deserved better
than my anxiety.
It wasn’t until
over a year and a half later
that I realized
I didn’t
do anything wrong.
Fiction
still influenced
how I saw
and interacted with
reality
a little too much,
and it was
a fanfiction
about two girls
sitting in a car,
where one of them
asked
to kiss the other
that made me feel
normal
and valid.
(I left a comment
through happy tears
saying as much.)
That was
luckily
only the first
in an
—admittedly short—
list of media
where asking
came before
the first kiss.
About half
of that list
were things
that I wrote.
But there was
one more fanfic,
with different girls,
though I can’t remember
who
or when
or the title.
And there was
a webcomic,
years later
and months after
we had broken up,
that still made me
sob
in the relief
of feeling seen.
And there was
a show.
One my mom
was watching
the second season of.
These girls
weren’t even
the main characters,
but their relationship
had already moved
from strangers
to crushes.
When one
paused
to ask,
and got not a
“yes,”
but a
“Hell yeah,”
I cried
so hard
from relief
that my mom
asked if I was okay.
I didn’t
have the words
to explain to her
how
much
that moment
meant to me,
because no matter
how comforting it is
to see
yourself
and your experiences
reflected in fiction,
this one
was mainstream.
This one
I knew
would be seen
by other teens,
other people
so anxious
about their first kiss.
Those
fifteen seconds
will help someone else
not feel
as stupid
as I did.
Maybe
that scene
will even help
someone else
work up the courage
to ask.