“Your Kiss Lingers” is a document of my solo performance during deep winter in New Hampshire. I was recovering from my first breakup and looking out at the miles of untouched snow from my window. I thought about how the snow would soon melt and trickle through underground water systems all the way down to the Potomac River, near the person who broke my heart still resided. And I realized I could still send a message through the snow. For this project, I sang one of my ex’s favorite love songs, “Carinito” (“My Darling” in Spanish) into the snow, so my adoration could be encased into the earth no matter how sour my memories became. I sat outside on a snow bank and started kissing each syllable of the chorus into the snow.

 

I shaped my mouth to one syllable at a time, and then with that shape, I pressed my face into the freezing mush. The shapes were shallow holes, each lyric almost indecipherable. I had to swallow the snow each time I puckered my mouth. Holes, indents, imprints, they seem empty, but they also say, “Hey, I was here. I was warm and present, and I’ve never really left you.” I photographed each hole and created a risographed accordion book so readers could unfold and read each lyric one by one, and when turned over, they could see the English translation. All of these components were be placed in translucent vellum handmade envelopes packaged in a pamphlet book.