Messy Means Action
By: Marina Varacelli
Tags: Queer, Sexuality, Women, Lesbian, Teens

My first kiss was all lip. I know that’s normal for a first kiss but I was 18, highly versed in my own body and what kind of porn turned me on and what kind of kiss appealed to me. My first kiss was a deadline I set for myself. An opportunistic plea with the universe.

The light in the lounge was tinted a deep red and the party felt out of synch, ten friend groups clashing and unable to meld together. I didn’t know anyone but El and encouraged myself to be okay by pregaming with a jumbo bottle of laundry room vodka I had watered down in my earlier teens. El wasn’t eating anything (which wasn’t unusual, I began picking up on her eating disorder during the first time we hung out, when she popped a bowl of popcorn and didn’t eat a single kernel…but gave the chubby dog a gourmet meal with an assortment of supplemental pills.) I don’t know why I kept agreeing to hang out when I had already felt her out and knew I wasn’t crazy about her.

El was a model and was conventionally very attractive. She was more into the idea of being wanted than she was into me. Modeling was all El ever talked about. Modeling and herself. She wasn’t much curious about me or anything else for that matter. But the light feeling of the vodka was numbing me to the possible consequences of making a move on her. So on the long bench overlooking the dance floor we kissed, and made out. And it was all lip, and it was boring, and it was sour.

But maybe I’m the dick. Who knows. El asked me to Prom some months later. Said she wanted to be more than friends. I kept thinking of the acidic taste of her mouth. She had acid reflux. Which she acted like was just a normal part of her life but which I’m pretty sure is because she didn’t really eat. Her teeth were yellowed, despite the perfect roundness and straightness of them. Yeah, I think I am the dick.

My second kiss was tonguey and fulfilling and hot as hell. And it wasn’t with El, although I do have to thank her for opening the channel. Turns out all I needed was to step the fuck up and get my own shit done. Make the moves instead of waiting for them to be made.

People tell me they thought I was mean when they first met me, that they were intimidated by me.

I once caught my eye in the mirror after I smiled at someone in the hall and was appalled by what I saw. That bitch face wasn’t mine, was it? And I remember crying myself to sleep in 10th grade and wondering why no one would approach the new girl. Why I had to sit at that library table with a strawberry table cloth and try to scarf down my lunch because there was nothing I thought of as more pathetic than eating alone. And I remember writing in my journal after asking a new friend to lunch in 11th grade that I felt “cracked open” and that I thought it was a breakthrough and that I was able to approach people now etc.

It’s hard I guess to accept that other people are just as afraid of you as you are of them.

But I’m getting off track. Yes, I’m a bit unapproachable sometimes, and I’m particularly bad at approaching others. But what the hell, take a few shots (unless you’re in rehab or are sober, then please don’t) say fuck it, kiss the girl. Even roll down your window and yell FUCK IT into the street. Messy maybe shouldn’t be a way of life, but it should be incorporated into everyone’s life. And I’ll stand by that. Messy at least means action.