Member-only story
First Kiss
My very first kiss
with someone other than grandma,
mummy, daddy, my niece
or the cat,
was with the other “poor kid”
on a scholarship to our posh school —
a nice boy who also felt he had something to prove.
It came in the form of a dare
roared on by rugby boys he needed to like him,
and netball girls I needed to like me,
on a coach returning from skiing in France —
one of two school trips
my parents made themselves afford
in the seven years I was there.
I knew none of them liked me.
They would switch seats,
laugh at my glasses, call me boffin, nerd,
because I answered questions in class,
which I thought you were meant to do
at a posh school where everyone else’s parents
were bankers, doctors, lawyers.
When I said ok,
lied that it wasn’t my first time,
my heart scuttled up my throat,
sapping my lips dry —
but there were cheers and baited breath,
so we looked at each other,
silently agreed this would…
