My (First) Kiss

I remember my first kiss.

Her face was all lit up

With the setting sun in her eyes

Her hair all shining, swishing in the sea breeze

I tugged them with love and felt her skin

So ethereal, so soft like it would melt.

Her skin blushing I could feel the heat.

A surge of energy is rushing through my body, but I could not move.

I could not tell her, but I did not have to.

Her eyes were searching my soul, our eyelashes met.

Could feel the music on her neck

And felt my blood rhythm to it.

Oh, and it just happened.

Our worlds had changed when our lips parted the eternal kiss.

And there was a sea of people

Applauding us.

It was a new beginning.

Together forever.

What we could not say, our lips said

And sealed it with our first kiss.

 

Then it happened the second time.

Women do it every day; I kept consoling myself.

But there is always a risk, the question is not about one life, but two.

I wanted to be with her, but she told me to wait outside.

Blood, blood, as if flowing from an open tap.

Her screams were real; it was not a false alarm.

Rushing to the hospital, pressure varying.

I was not tensed I was panicking.

Time had lost all its meaning.

Minutes became as long as hours.

Family, friends- Nothing could calm me down.

Taken into the ‘no man zone’ of labour room,

She would be starving by now.

Finally, the nurse came, with my daughter, wrapped in a bundle.

She was in the room, beautiful than ever before

She was tired, but she was glittering with joy.

And I could not bear to look at her,

She could smile, after taking so much pain.

Overwhelmed with joy, there were tears in my eyes.

Time for celebration, it’s a baby…

All that I felt and I could not put into words,

I sealed it with a gentle kiss.

And there was everybody celebrating with us.

A day I could never forget.

She gave me a daughter, an angel, a princess.

 

 

Today,

It happened again.

Thousand times more passionate.

She was in so much pain,

All I could do was shut my eyes and hide behind the doors.

But this time, I was alone.

My children were busy finding doctors and settling accounts.

No crowd applauding. No relatives. Just white halls.

And I held her hands, now wrinkled and liver spots.

I had so much to say, but I could not put it into words.

The white halls, the smell of Dettol, White coats.

I kissed her, to say what I could not speak.

But I was shocked as we parted, her lips BLED.

And the truth hit me.

After the miles we walked together, hand in hand, medical science says, our time’s up.

I tugged, but there were no strands of her hair on her head.

Her eyes all droopy, just a glint somewhere in the corner.

Her skin, so thin with red spots and bones.

But still my blood searched for the rhythm on her neck.

Too fragile, her heart, Just alive after a chemo.

 

Now I know,

That day.

On my first kiss.

Not the sea, not the sun, not the people.

Not her hair, not her skin, not the romance.

It was Her. And Me. That made it all Special.

A Part of me. In her.

And I would do,

Anything. Just Anything.

To keep her heart beating.

For even just one more second.

To keep me alive. In her.