Why You Ain’t Kiss Me on My Volar, Bruh: A Call to Action

 From Page to Screen to Real Life: Let’s Make Every Kiss Legendary

I love a good romantic kiss written in literature, captured cinematically, and of course experienced personally. Channel your inner Erykah Badu with me:

“I want somebody to walk up behind me and kiss me…
ON MY NECK…
and breeeeaaaaattthhheee…
ON MY NECK…”

In recent years, I’ve felt this urge to write romantic love with kisses and heightened intimacy in some of my short stories. I’ve been reading more Black romance novels too because ain’t nothing like a good steamy love scene. Authors who can make love scenes amplify off the page flawlessly without visual assistance? Real MVPs. Some of these written romantic scenes lack cajun seasoning.

I live for when a closed-off Justice melts into her first kiss with Lucky in Poetic Justice (1993) and won’t ever forget it. And I vow one day to kiss in the desert with a USPS truck in the background, okay? Kisses wrapped in prose like Nina and Darius had in Love Jones (1997). Baby, remember when Nina took a stab at nibbling Darius’s ear? I yearn for a Chi-Town love full of smoke, an Old Fashioned, open mic nights, and poems directed at me. Minus the sprinkle of toxicity, of course.

I believe kisses get better with time, right? No more slobbery, stale breath first kisses like I had in middle school. Yes, in a sauna at a house party. All the 13-year-olds crowded in there taking turns. Baby, at my age now, I want an angel kiss, the eyelid kiss like that iconic moment between Amanda and Graham in The Holiday (2006). Kiss my eyelids gently, my love, without wiping off my soft glam.

One of my favorite cinematic kisses is the volar, inner arm, kiss. When I started this new season of Bridgerton and saw Benedict Bridgerton kiss Lady Silver’s inner arm I screamed. I was instantly reminded of all those inner arm kiss moments like: Kaz kissing Noni’s inner arm in Beyond the Lights (2014), Darius kissing Nina’s inner arm in Love Jones (1997), and Michael kissing Mae’s inner arm in The Photograph (2020). I immediately called my ex, we’re still really good friends, and said, “Why you ain’t kiss me on my volar, bruh?” To which I got, “Your what? Cynthia, please.”

And kissing while crying? Quincy and Monica’s complicated, messy, beautiful crying kiss in Love & Basketball (2000) hits different. Honestly, I could go on and on about iconic kisses in cinema for days. Black cinema specifically has had some top tier moments.

Though random at the onset, I feel like this post is a call to action. Authors, I need more expansive kisses in literature and screenplays. Directors, I need you to direct these kissing scenes like your life depends on it. I want goosebumps. I want to weep like Jesus reading and watching the character’s love story unfold. Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I’m calling for everyone to lean in for a unique and passionate kiss so full of love, so full of intimacy, so full of I am here and I ain’t going nowhere, and so soul-stirring that no cinematic capture could ever do it justice. Forget the roses and the candy. Let’s get some real, “devour me”, heart-chakra-exhilaration kissing going on this Valentine’s Day 2026.

Huddle up. Hands in. “Kiss me like ya mean it on three.”
“ONE… TWO… THREE… KISS ME LIKE YOU MEAN IT!” Let’s go!

Happy Black History Month!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Let me know how it all goes.

Asé.