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  "description": "by Kristina Patterson  |  XOXO.",
  "path": "/kissings/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-11-05T12:15:23.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.short-reads.org",
  "tags": [
    "“Hummingbird Heart”",
    "“Moon, Leaving”",
    "Twitter",
    "Facebook",
    "LinkedIn",
    "Bluesky",
    "Hattie Fletcher",
    "Chad Vogler",
    "Anna Hall",
    "Stephen Knezovich",
    "short-reads.org",
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  "textContent": "​​​Bobby: in kindergarten, ​in ​a pretend wedding ​​​​​to​​ ​a boy who grew up and married ​​​​a man. Keri: ​at ​a giggling cousin sleepover, sharing a bed, butterfly eyelashes tickling soft cheeks. Mitzi: ​on ​her scruffy snout before she died from eating rat poison the neighbor left outside.\n\nEric: at the skating rink. Steve: at the football game. Eric: in the back of the bus. Steve: next to the Ferris wheel. The mirror​,​ with _“_ Hungry Like the Wolf” __ playing on repeat​:​ after Eric and Steve dumped me for two-timing them.\n\nRumsey​, a homeless ​​guy​: in the alley​,​ before throwing up ​seven​ hot-pink Singapore Slings. Wayne: in the delicious forbidden hour between his first and second jobs, before he went home to his wife. Husband #1: ​n​ot on the neck because that’s where he liked it the most.\n\nA cop’s ass: ​​figuratively, after he clocked me going 78 in a 55. Husband #2: anywhere and everywhere—if only kisses could hold a marriage together. ​​​​Cheri: on her damp forehead after I whispered that it was OK to go and before ​my precious aunt, my mother’s younger sister, ​took her last rattling breath.\n\nAn envelope​ holding a letter to a misunderstood inmate​: just before putting it into a mailbox. The dirt: in the backyard of my first grown-up house, where I sprinkled poppy seeds my great grandfather brought from Czechoslovakia, dried and saved by ancestors. Husband #3: under a cherry tree, the pale blossoms falling all over us, with a sweet clumsiness that could only mean _finally_.​​​\n\n* * *\n\n**Kristina Patterson** lives and writes in Humboldt County, CA. She is a night owl and a bad ukulele player who is in love with Ferris wheels. She has won several prizes in the North Coast Journal Flash Fiction Contest.\n\nThis essay is a _Short Reads_ original.\n\n* * *\n\n### **From the archive**\n\n\nNov 6, 2024\n“Hummingbird Heart”\nby Eric Boyd | A small good thing.\n\nNov 8, 2023\n“Moon, Leaving”\nby Courtney Ruttenbur Bulsiewicz | Slip-sliding away.\n\nShare this on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Bluesky\n\nThis issue of __Short Reads__ was 💋🐶 edited by Hattie Fletcher; 💋🎡 fact-checked and proofread by Chad Vogler; 💋🚨 designed by Anna Hall.; and 💋🌸 delivered to our 2,354 subscribers by Stephen Knezovich.\n\n****Miss an issue?**** Every  __Short Reads__ essay is available on short-reads.org.\n****Want more like this?**** Subscribe to __Short Reads__ and get one fresh flash essay—for free—in your inbox every Wednesday. Or become a supporting subscriber and help us pay writers.",
  "title": "Kissings",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-02T17:45:33.749Z"
}