It’s the pull of a compass magnet

finding its home in the north.

His air attracts my earth.

Dizzying.

His altitude makes it hard

to breathe. But when I do,

it’s fresh and clean.

Warm despite the chill.

Pure oxygen

making me high.

He is everywhere.

His hands on my flushed red cheeks.

His lips

on my neck, down to my collarbone.

Barely brushing, just enough for there to be goosebumps.

My pulse pounds under his mouth and he laughs

Murmuring that he can always find North there.

His touch is light, a crisp breeze on pale skin.

Our noses touch and the dizziness fades. 

The weight of what he feels is the Earth’s core.

Its magnetized force.

The compass pull and the push-pounding of my

heart spins to meet it.

Emerald eyes, sparking with unlaughed

laughter meet my cloudy brown ones.

“Your eyes,” he says softly, thumb tracing

the soft skin under them, “are the earth.”

“Ridiculous,” I mutter back even though his eyes

are the sea.

His eyelashes flutter against my cheek

like a bird’s feathers and I laugh until

I’m shaking and crying. He knows I will

laugh every time.

“That’s cheating.”

He cups my chin in his hands and

breathes new life into me.

When he pulls away, I can’t breathe.

Amusement glimmers in his eyes

and I can almost see the peak

of a mountain in them too. 

It’s snow-capped and cold

but warm with his body arched over mine.

His fingers trace my body like a 

well-loved map that he knows better

than anything else. 

“North,” he says, his thumb dipping into 

The hollow of my collarbone.