Lessons From the Kissing Booth

It's the minutes that build up under your fingernails as you move through time, compiling moments into gritty half-moons that pack into crevasses and sit there, ticking. The look on your face when your meticulous hand-washing scrubs them away is the same one that I've seen on a child with a fistful of ice cream cone and the top scoop sitting forlorn in the dirt, and anyone who didn't know better would have thought you'd have learned eventually. Would have thought that you'd find a better way of collecting your moments than just passing your hands through space and hoping that something sticks. Would have thought that you found yourself fond of the loss and the sinking sensation it brought along.

But I have seen the bright orange of a semaphore flash in the back of your eyes as you pick up the soap, heard the hitch in your voice when you talk about becoming a cartographer. I know the romance of ultima thule and way the pads of your fingers itch to pin it down and surround it with fantastic monsters. I think that the reason you wash away your built up moments is really because you think your plumbing is all full of monsters, monsters who eat minutes, and sending them down the drain is much nicer than losing them to the belly of a monster. At least if they're in the water, you might get to drink them again someday.

We are frequently a little too serious for our own good. Next time perhaps I will remember when to say when.