OK, I will admit it to y'all upfront. Sometimes it sucks to be a guy. Not in the "I wanna carry a child around for nine months then give birth to it only to have it tell me to fuck off as a teenager" kind of way, of course. Guys have it easy, and I've just about got it down to a science now.
But there are times when we just can't react the way we want to need to are supposed to react. We aren't wired for it. We are the hunters, the warmongers, the rock you need to support you, and the shoulder you turn to in one hour for it's strength and the next for it's gentle kindness. We can give you answers when you want them, and we can sit there and listen while you come up with your own. We adjust, we change track, we go in circles sometimes trying to figure out what you are really asking of us.
And that's great. We were built for it the way we were built to drive fast and tear each other up during the holiday touch football game. If we really understood the female mind; if we really acted exactly the way we were supposed to every waking minute I think that society would fall apart. Women wouldn't want us to be perfect. Where is there room to grow together that way anyway?
We struggle. We cope. We secretly love it when you spend way too much money on a dress you get to wear only one time to impress people we don't really care about impressing because, let's face it, you DO look stunning in that dress and we can't wait to get home to tear off the thirty dollar panties because we love you in the walmart shorts and t-shirt just as much.
We sit in recliners. We watch golf on tv. We sometimes forget to do dishes and we sometimes get up early and make breakfast and even put fresh cut flowers on the table while you sleep. We wine and we dine and we impress by washing the car those first few dates even though we know, we really do understand, that what impresses you most is the honest smile, the one that comes from the soul and reflects through the eyes. We know, we really do understand that what you like isn't the title of our job but that we support our child or visit our parents or even hold the door open for strangers in the rain and still we feel the need to iron our shirts before going out to the movies.
It's what we do. We are guys.
What we don't do is wait for those words from her. Kiss me. We take it on the doorstep as we say goodnight. Or we take your hand and drag you across the crowded Christmas party into a quiet corner, against the wall while you receive it in a state of shock. We play it cool because we are shy and we play it shy because we know it's already ours. The question might be when but the act is ours. We own it. We have struggled with it since we stopped dragging you into caves with our club in the other hand. We wonder does she want me to. We ask ourselves should it be now. We think that any moment is the perfect one but have also learned that you already have an idea of where and when and we better get it straight or at l;east close to what you had in mind.
Kiss me. That's our line. We have called you a day before the other guy who's interested in you. We go behind his back. We openly war with him. We sometimes draw straws or back off for a friend. We play wingman for each other. We have propped up and destroyed empires over that kiss. We've earned that right and we take it. Sometimes gently just below the ear and sometimes with a bite on the lower lip. We go across country to get it. We wait patiently for the opportunity and we rush into relationships for it.
Kiss me.
Two words I find myself still waiting to hear from her. The one act of submission that tortures my soul more than anything else is her willingness to utter those two little words to me. I have taken another's virginity. I have changed another's life. I gave a child to one. I've even taken a woman's soul and added it to my collection of emotional trophies. Things I have made amends for and things I will never be able to make right. And now I find myself unable to take that kiss from her; unwilling to steal from her the one thing she will never be able to give me.
Kiss me.
I could have taken it when I had the chance. I could have forced the issue three years earlier. I could have charmed and cajoled and batted the baby blue eyes and wrote the love letters that make you mine and it would have been a question of when not a question of if. Because she is gone now and they are words I never needed in my life until I realized they were never there and I missed them.
Kiss me.
When we talked about that first kiss and we talked about the possibilities and the potentials and the butterflies and the excitement and the caressing that follows what was in my mind was always a single thought. Because I knew we would have a first kiss. The first kiss is wonderful. It opens doors and opens hearts and you are completely in the moment and there is no other feeling in the world. But what I realized, what always crossed my mind, was that there would never be another first kiss for me. That would be the last one and the second one would be sweet and the third even sweeter and the thought of a million kisses with her was rejuvinating and the thought now, not of the first kiss but of that last kiss before my last breath of air is truly amazing to me and what I really want in this world.
Kiss me.
And she will never say that to me. I understand that and I know it and I crave it no less than I did almost four years ago. So I've spent too many months now waiting to hear it from somebody anybody else and it isn't coming and it won't be what I am seeking and so I am back to being a guy which means I am wining and dining and charming and cajoling and washing my car and ironing my shirts and doing what guys do. And I've got it easy, and I have it basically down to a science now.
Except I am extraordinary. And this is only a passing fad. And if you ever wonder, ladies and gentlemen, if it ever crosses your mind, you might try uttering those words to somebody and seeing what magic occurs. Life is fleeting and people move on.
Kiss me.
