How the West was whirled.
I am thinking to myself, "I kissed this man."

Severed now from the moment, the recriminations begin: "Selfish". "Thoughtless". "Arrogant". "Impetuous". "Reckless". Sharp, angry stones that grumble and bite at my bare feet as I make my way home. But I know this route. I've taken it before, it's achingly familiar. I kick at the roadway, and a stone rolls gently on its side and sings, "Spontaneous!" I strike at another: "Impassioned!" The chorus begins anew, a melody of voices trilling rapid-fire: "Visceral"! "Instinctual"! "Truthful"!

One tiny pebble whispers, "drunk"; I stub my toe expelling it fiercely from the path.

At home, I am curled up languidly inside the memory, feeling the heat of my palm against his heartbeat, and salty beads of sweat trickling down my forearm to pool on the back of his neck. I am reliving the singular anxiety preceding this and every first kiss, a few precious moments imploding on impact, never to be regained. I am lingering in the press of his mouth against mine, clean and uncluttered, jolting my energy up and into it's swirling center. Again I can feel my body and this chair and this room fall away, leaving only the shape of this kiss to fill in the space.

And now I am thinking to myself, "I kissed this man, and then he bailed on me for a plastic glass of cheap white wine."