In keeping up with our monthly mini flash essay contests — and inspired by an essay about another first of sorts — we asked you over at Narratively Academy to tell us about your first kiss. Well, did you deliver! What a joy to read about the quiet before the kisses, the closets, the basements, the cha-cha-cha and the box step. As always, it was almost impossible to choose, there were so many great ones. Check out our very favorite below. Illustrations by Kenny Wroten/Narratively archiveHis name was Shaun Paul and I didn’t mean to kiss him.Mostly, I preferred sticking pins through the dead skin of my fingers, gulping milk and letting it trickle out of my nose, then walking like a zombie after the other kids with my eyes rolled back in my head. Both the boys and the girls ran away from me screaming, and I got written up as a disturber in all my report cards.Worth it.All us grade one kids ran around the playground in a prepubescent parody of lust. Girls with puckered lips chased squealing boys who were terrified of contracting cooties. Although the idea of kissing anyone made me feel icky, I played, too. After all, it was far less effort than the pin-pricked, milk-dribbling, whites-of-the-eyes zombie walk.I had a boy in my sights. His name was Shaun, and we were the only Mi’kmaq kids in the whole school. He had shiny black hair, blue jeans, and a fuzzy red shirt. He ran behind the mobile classrooms with me hot on his heels making smooching sounds.There were still trees in the schoolyard back then: old-growth oaks, maples, cedars, and spruce. This was in the ’70s, before someone bulldozed the woods and replaced them with a weedy lawn. The trees were the best part of the playground, but their roots were everywhere.Still squealing and laughing, Shaun spun around to face me while running backwards. He tripped over a root.I tumbled over his feet.And much to my horror, I landed mouth-first on his lips.Our faces squelched together in our first-ever kiss. Shaun gazed up at me with puppy dog eyes. I leapt to my feet, wiped my mouth and spat all the boy germs away.Shantell Powell is an elder goth/swamp hag who grew up in an apocalyptic cult but got better. She makes up weird stuff about nature, fairytales and religion.