The Longest Millimeter

Maybe it’s the job.

Or maybe it’s just me getting older.

But these days I don’t want the kiss right away.

I want the wait.

The slow crawl toward it.

That tiny ache of almost.

I used to collect black-and-white photos of people kissing—hundreds of them. I lost most of them in a move I barely survived, but the ones that stuck with me weren’t even of the kiss itself. They were of the breath before. That last inch. The gravity in the space between.

That’s the part that wrecks me now.

When your mouth is this close to mine and we’re both hovering there, breathing into each other’s hunger, not moving because we both know the second we do, the world tips.

It’s the way my lips start to buzz before they’ve even touched you.

The way your exhale tastes like a promise.

The way my whole body says yes, but my mouth says wait.

I’ve lived long enough to know the kiss is never the point.

It’s the burn you build on the way there.

It’s the torture of wanting and not having,

until you can’t hold still anymore.

So don’t rush me.

Don’t steal the moment.

Let me drown in the longest millimeter of my life.