I
sit up and
grab her face in my hand
s
and kiss her
.
T
he ice pack slides between us and it’s
wet
against my chest. E
ven though my shoulder’s numb, when she touches it, her fingers burn my skin
.
It’s just
a
kiss, I remind myself
.
That’s all
.
I lean back and pull her
on top of me. H
er hair falls all around us and I have to brush it away
.
The ice pack crunches between
us
and I grab it and throw it on the floor
.
I wrap her in my arms and I feel like I’m holding layers of happiness.
It’s just one
kiss
.
I drink in her mouth and taste her tongue
and
my mind is a roller
coaster
.
My heart pulls apart and
collides
back together with so much force
that
my hands start to shake
.
I feel like I’m speeding down a highway in the middle of the night with no headlights
turned
on
.
A
single
kiss can be one of the craziest things you ever do
.
***
I stare up at my bedroom ceiling after
she
leave
s
and replay the kiss
over and over in my head like a
song on repeat and I taste it and savor it until my stomach flips so many times it hurts
.
I
learned
something
tonight
.
Love always finds you, no matter how hard you try to avoid it
.
It knows your hiding places
.
It’s smarter that you’ll ever be
.
And love is patient
.
It waits
.
Sometimes it w
aits until you give up
.
Just to prove you wrong
.
But sometimes
I’d rather hide than feel this
way
because when I’m with
her
the chemical reaction is too strong
.
Sparks shoot off behind my eyes
.
It’s my own free firework show
.
But I don’t know if I want it
.
Firew
orks scared me when I was a kid
—the
ashes falling from the sky
, t
he scream
ing
spectators
,
t
h
e flashing streak
s of light and noise you could feel
jostle
the ground
.
I imagined the fireworks could hit the stars
.
Could shatter som
ething whole
.
That the lights c
ould fall on me like
boulders, c
rushing me.
T
hat’s how
you make me
feel
tonight
.
You
.
Crush
.
Me
.
Under your magnificent light show
.
DYLAN
Gray
once
told me he thinks musicians are the greatest magicians
.
Sometimes that’s the way I feel about photography
.
It feels like
magic
, to be able to capture
an entire
mountain and hold it in
side a
tiny frame
.
To be able to take the sky
-
line of New York
City,
with all of it
s lights
, or the city of Prague with
its tunnel
of bridges and
compress
it neatly on a single
.
Cameras give
one person
a
thousand eyes
.
They t
ake us
light years
away
.
Pictures i
ntroduce us to a million strangers
.
They l
et us travel to other planets
.
It’s like teleporting
.
It’s the magic that intrigues me
.
My first gallery show
is
a small turnout of
dedicated
regulars
.
I
show
case
twenty
pictures
and o
ver the course of four hours
about
twenty
people
come and go
.
I end up selling
eight
prints
.
I listen
to p
eople
analyze
my
photographs
all evening
.
They call
my vision
fresh
.
Innovative
.
Peo
ple ask
what inspires me
.
Is it my fascination with emotions
?
Is it to
reveal our
humanity
?
Is it to show
people wear the same expressio
ns, whether we’re young or old?
Really, I don’t think about it
.
I
don’t plan my p
hotos
in advance;
I don’t
try and predict what
people will do
.
I never
stage a shot
.
It’s more fun to be
surprised
.
Life’s a better story if
you
let it unfold naturally
.
When you force it, things become a chore because you close yourself off to possibility
.
You experience
the most when you’re not looking for anything
in particular
.
Photography is the same
way
.
By the end of the show I’m giddy and exhausted and my fee
t hurt from wearing new sandals
.
Liz
,
(
my
fashion
tutor)
,
helped me
coordinate the look
of an aspiring photographer
.
She paired my
knee-length
turquoise
skirt with a
simple
,
brown tank top
and
leather
belt, hanging
low on my waist
,
with small
amber and turquoise beads sewn
around the buckle
.
It’s a little
too
color-coordinated for my taste, but Liz
says my complexion works best with earth tones, whatever that means
.
When the last
customer leaves,
Barb
begins stacking
dishes on
the
table next to
the
empty
vegetable and cheese spreads
.
“
I think you found your calling,
”
Barb said
.
“Selling eight pieces is great for a first show
.
It’s al
l about networking from here.”
She’s right
, because even people that didn’t buy my photos were
still
interested in my work
.
One woman hired me do a landscape
series
of her property
.
A man h
ired me to photograph his Bernes
e Mountain Dogs
.
I set up two photo shoots for the following week
.
The word was starting to spread
.