The Kiss-Off.

When I lose interest in a relationship, I don't stop fucking people. I stop kissing them. Kissing is personal and if I've signed out mentally or emotionally if not physically, then it really just disgusts me to do it. Sex comes from animalistic place where urges are based on instinct. (Did you know women can often get physically aroused even if their brain signals no signs of arousal? Scientists think it may be some evolutionary response to forced sex to protect the woman from further injury due to lack of lubrication. No—I don't remember where I read this mess, but Google is like God.) Kissing—conversely—is like telling you my darkest secret and then asking that you still look me in the eyes the next day and the next day.

Now please understand—this doesn't mean that I do not respect the times that kissing is inappropriate during certain times or types of sex. During some whiskey-fueled fuckFuckFUCK fest, the last thing I want my partner to be reflecting on is the fact that I consistently find my way to a cigarette when fueled by said whiskey. Instead I want him or her to be focusing on how I've got a dirty mouth like a sailor's wife when I'm whiskey fucking. I digress.

Kissing is inherently genuine. I believe it may be the closest we can get to reading each other's thoughts—or the closest most of us can expect to get. It's using our instrument of communication to tell the person exactly what we are feeling, whether it's playful or shy or pulsing with desire that pumps through our blood and into the spots where our bodies are meeting. I can promise you everything I am feeling during a moment of intimacy can be felt when my lover comes closer for a kiss. The way I nibble for more or just melt back and let it take place. If I am so wrapped in passion I can hardly keep my kissing still and I go from neck to ear to mouth and back again. When I wrap my arms around them or lie softly waiting for them to hold me there. Everything I feel I say with my mouth. It's just sometimes those feelings are too much for words to contain.

And that is why, when all the chips are cashed, and I'm ready to go back home shoeless and empty-handed, I simply cannot bear a kiss goodbye. Because just one more kiss might stop my soul.