Reach Over, It Feels Like Rubber

My mom said goodnight to me and when she leaned close I told her that I had my first kiss on the floor of the room down the hall. She acts excited. Maybe she was, but maybe she also had to pretend because she knew one day it wouldn’t be all that important to me, but I guess that’s being a parent—finding every little thing important just because it’s in some way about this thing you created. Sometimes I’m disgusted that I have kissed anyone in my childhood home, in my childhood bedroom. What if I traumatize the remnants of my ten year old self? I wonder all the time if she still lives in the walls and I wonder if she hates me, or if she’s proud of me for how I have changed within the confines of four walls and two windows and three doors and hundreds of pieces of artwork that have been pinned to my walls and left and then taken down and moved or thrown away or crossed state lines just to be pinned to another wall. 

Years later I would cross my fingers and say I would never want to kiss anyone again, but then I would, and I would wonder if my sheets would ever actually be mine or if they would hold onto everyone I’ve ever touched or loved, even if just for a moment. Even if I wash them in boiling water and double the detergent and let them dry for two cycles on ‘hot.’ But, then maybe they would come out too small and no longer fit over my bed and in that case I’d have to get inside the elastic rim and stretch my body to try and stretch the sheets. And, then I think it would look like I am a part of the sheets the way it felt that one time when I dreamed that at night I would take off my skin and fall asleep under it like a blanket. If it was a blanket though I’d have to wash it and if I wanted to use hot water I would have to be careful that it doesn’t shrink because you can buy new sheets, but if you shrink your skin I’m not really sure what you’re supposed to do about that.