Writing a Kiss

"Kissing is a spiritual act."

Aug 18, 2024

I am obsessed with kisses. Watching them and reading them. I am quite a teenager that way. Most friends have gotten over it. I have gotten deeper into it.

Kissing is a spiritual act. Well not exactly, but if you want people to take your writing topic seriously, just say such and such thing is a spiritual act. Or a political act. Or an act of self-preservation. It gets the job done. I bet you started reading with piqued interest. To find out if making cocktails with our saliva is akin to meditating in the Himalayas or not.

If I will ever write about kissing, I would never want to write an essay. Maybe I will whip up a poem like I did right after my first kiss. In it, lips were petals and clinking teeth were white stones creating sparks of fire.

But most delightfully, when I have enough time and money, I will sit down to write an elaborate, slow-burn, fictional situation where real, well-rounded characters, who have been friends for years, suddenly, but inevitably, kiss for the very first time. And bring your paper fans, my friends. Because it will be hot.

First, my characters will be doing something together. Maybe an assignment at work, or packing stuff for the movers to take to another city. Maybe one of them is leaving, or maybe they are both finally going to live in the same city. There isn’t a more romantic setting than cartons piled up jenga style. Dust abundant in the air. Some ceramic plates broken into pieces. And if it doesn’t sound romantic yet, I will make it so.

I will hand our lead characters two juice bottles in the middle of the moving day. I will give them straws. I will make them watch each others’ lips wrap around the straws.

Then I will make sure the characters lift things up from the floor and bring things down from the loft. I will make them notice the cleavage and the waist that just got revealed. They will be naughty, staring for an extra half-second, before looking away. Fiction is a wonderful excuse for a writer to be naughty herself.

I will make them talk, indirectly of course, about their childhood, the school in which they became friends, their hometown. I will make them ask each other a few questions. About Atomic Habits and ambition. Or about existential angst and generational trauma. They will have each their own creative blocks, their own secret dreams. The girl will never ask the question she actually wants to ask him, “When will you start looking at me as a grown-up woman?”

Oh, and I will make them fight. Bitterly. They will accuse each other as they slam books into the cartons. The girl will say that the guy has always fat-shamed her. And he will be like - what the fuck are you talking about.

“Why do you still call me moti?” she will demand. “Coz I’ve always called you that kabhi kabhi! What’s the big deal?”, he will ask like a stupid child.

“It’s offensive! This kind of fat-shaming language is why I am not friends with guys like you,” the girl will yell. “Then why are you friends with me? And I didn’t shame you or whatever. Have I ever commented on your weight?”

“What if it’s not fat shaming? What if it’s fat loving? What if I love that you’re fat?,” he’ll take a quick breath, lower his voice, and say, “coz I do..”

I will write that the girl’s blood drained from her face. I will make the guy walk up to the girl. I will feel shy and lost as a writer to describe the moments right before the kiss. I will have to research how other writers have closed the gap between two people without hurrying.

But once they start kissing, I will have the exact words to describe what they’re doing. And they won’t be pretty words necessarily. Just as honest as possible.

I will say that the girl kissed as if she was hungry. The kind of hunger one has while eating a sandwich with meat and cheese. She is surprised that she never ate this particular sandwich. This yummy, gooey, heavenly sandwich. It was right there. Well, it was being eaten by others. And that somehow made it tastier.

I will make the girl hold his neck and bite into his lower lip. I will do all the detailed writing, sentence after sentence, so that our girl gets to mouth the letter ‘mmm’ for several seconds.

I will make the guy start gently. Kissing as if he is flicking a candle flame with his index finger. Not wanting to get burnt. But seeing the girl’s hunger, our guy loses all caution. He is ready for f i r e. The heat had been simmering in him for many years anyway. The envious wonder he felt when she went out with other guys. The craving for her that felt too expensive if it meant he’d lose her as a friend. But I will make him forget the friendship sometime during the kiss. I will make him see her differently, even though his eyes will be shut tight all through out.

Kissing indeed is a spiritual act. I haven’t found anything more at the intersection of here and now than four lips, two tongues, and a few teeth having a little party. The world be damned. The stresses of daily life can go fuck themselves.

Kissing lulls the monkey mind into sweet stillness. And it’s not just a mouth party. The mind is invited, the heart bounces up into the throat, and the body downstairs prepares for further milan. Kissing unifies the scattered being that you are. It brings you into the present moment way quicker than the Headspace app.

If kissing is spiritual, then writing a kiss must be spiritual too.

Creating two wounded and contrasting characters. Rivals or enemies, friends or colleagues. Having them clash with each other, getting to know each other through twists and turns. And eventually having them fusing their faces and eating each other’s mouths. What a power to have.

Writing fictional kisses that make other girls, sick in bed as I was, or tired after a hard day at work, feel warm waves of joy — That is one of my secret dreams.

If this piece spoke to you in any way, pretty please, let me know.

Creative Resilience with Raju Tai

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