When I Wanted to Kiss Your Neck by the River

“This is who I am.” The words rise, though I am alone. I’m not perfect or beautiful or young: “This is me, accept me or reject me.” (Please, love me.) Some minutes later, I park, stumble gracelessly out of the car, hopelessly in love, nervously shrugging the words I had minutes before spoken aloud, and then I fall into your arms and find peace, home. (Please, oh god, please love me.) I think I play it cool, but inside oh how I want to kiss your neck, standing there by the river. Time slows. The wind tosses my hair everywhere. My skirt teases up, whips my knees. The air is fresh and warm. The grass, the leaves impossibly green. The water drifts lazily while the geese waddle by, ignoring us, our quiet conversation. You point out several landmarks and their significance. I remember you telling me about them, sending me photos. Now I see them in real life, with you. I just want to stay near you, from this moment on. My body, now imprinted by the memory of your arms around me, wonders: how to get closer? I can smell you, where my face had pressed to your chest. I wonder if you are half as affected by me as I you. I scoot everso slightly closer to you. Wanting to invade your space. Wanting you back in mine. Wanting your arms around me again. Our bodies pressed together. Our energies intermingling. Wanting to kiss you. For all my senses to be filled by you. Wanting all this and more and somehow at the same time filled with peace. Either you will accept me, or you won’t. Either you will love me or you will walk away. From me, with my flaws and fading youth and sad eyes. Me, with a heart full of love and grace. Me, loving only you. 

As I drive away some days later, the skies having opened that morning, overdue rain now drumming the windshield, watering the parched fields, “How am I going to carry on without you now? Now that I’ve had you?  Without a heart in my chest?” I wonder who will cry more: me, or the clouds. (I’m betting it’s me.) Tears run down my face. Drip-drip-dripping from my chin. “I love you,” I say inside an empty car. “Please don’t forget me,” I whisper to the passing landscape, hoping somehow my words will find you, in spite of the growing distance between us. But this I now know: you do love me. And I you.

---

tara caribou | ©️2025 photo by me