Kiss Like You Mean It

By

Kiss them with hate. Imagine your tongue is a dagger and you’re slicing away. Snip snip. Smash smash. Are you tasting their blood yet? It should come trickling in any minute now. Kiss them violently. Bump heads. Get lock jaw. Avenge their wrongs under the guise of sweet affection. Think of unreturned phone calls, unanswered texts, cold remarks said in bed, and start biting their lip. Oh, yeah, it’s sexy. Sure. But they’re going to know why you’re biting down so hard. They’re going to know this isn’t for you. It’s for them. You’re in control now and they’re vulnerable. Take it as far as you can go and trust me when I say they won’t stop you. Assholes like to be punished with a kiss because they’re still gaining something. They still get to taste your tongue thrashing against theirs and it’s enough to keep them going.

Kiss them with trepidation. Have them rub your arm while you’re on the phone and feel a shiver go through your entire body. You’ve been touched. You were expecting it but now it’s here and you will be naked with this person in 20 minutes. 10 if the kissing bores you. It won’t though. The kissing never bores you because it’s always more than “just” a kiss. It’s a little bit more than “just” sex too. It’s always going to feel a little bit more than casual but not serious enough for you to run away, for you to get out and leave the kiss behind. You’re going to bed with this person. It’s going to start with this kiss and end before you know it. It’s always going to end abruptly and you will always be left lying naked in bed, wondering where it went. Don’t you get it by now? The kiss doesn’t need permission. It comes and goes whenever it pleases. Just close your eyes and pray it’s still there when you open them.

Kiss like you’re a starved animal. Imagine you’re kissing a birthday cake, a sno-cone, a Ryan Gosling. Pour all of your attention into the kiss like you’re a conductor leading a makeout orchestra. What way do you want it to go? Oops, not there. You made a wrong turn. Time to go back. Oh, now this is nice. This you can get used to. Grab the back of their head and stroke their skull. Tickle it. Run your fingers up and down the neck. Kiss the sides of the mouth. Kiss the bottom. Kiss the top. Land in the middle. There’s a rhythm to this and you want to make sure you got it down. You got it under control. You’re going to conquer this and make it the ultimate make out session. If you can master Excel and Photoshop, you can certainly master someone’s mouth.

Kiss like this is your last shot at getting someone to love you. It will reek of desperation and yearning but, you know, some people respond to that kind of thing. Start out with robust energy. Hit all the right marks and when you’re not getting the reaction you want, when you realize you’re kissing a limp doll, feel your mouth start to deflate. Push their mouth off of yours and collapse on to your side of the bed. You’ve given up. You felt everything and they felt nothing. You can only kiss someone for so long who doesn’t want to kiss back. You can tell yourself lies that’ll keep you company but even those will have an expiration.

Don’t kiss anyone for awhile. Watch movies instead. Form a close relationship with bread. Drink heavily. Sit on park benches and pretend you’re deep. Then, in a moment of pure loneliness and curiosity, make out with your hand in the shower. This will scare you. This will be the jolt you need to get back out there. Leap out of the shower and into a bar full of hot people. Make out with all of them.

When you’re kissing, make note of how intimate it feels. In some ways, it’s more personal than sex. You’ve had someone inside of you while doing your nails. You’ve gone to sleep and let them still finish on your stomach. “JUST DON’T WAKE ME UP.” But you always feel a tinge of nervousness, your body always shakes the first time you kiss someone. We constantly look for ways to feel young again, to feel untouched and curious, and this is it. It will always be brought out of you with a kiss. It will always have the power to make you feel 17 again.

You should follow Thought Catalog on Twitter here.