I can feel it

I can feel it

I want to kiss you in the snow.

I want to kiss you until you have to inhale the cold air deeply. Swollen pink lips and puffs of air condensed in front of us. I want to pull you by the ends of your scarf in a flurry of big white flakes and press your lips against mine. I want to feel the weight of your arms on my shoulders, wrapping around my neck, pulling me closer, tasting me.

This was all decided while I was outside, leaning against the cold brick of my apartment building, thinking of your face while I stared at the clear blue sky. The snow had been falling for a few days now. I was doing what I normally do, smoking frequently out of distaste for my surroundings, being too lazy to ash my cigarette and watching it break off in the wind and land somewhere I couldn’t see with my peripheral vision.

As I watched geese fly south for the winter it occurred to me that I want to fly south with you. I want to take you where you’ve never been. South America, the Caribbean, somewhere exotic. I want to put flowers in your hair and undress you beneath the moon. Swallow you with my gaze and press my fingertips along the smooth column of your neck and hear you whisper my name. Whisper it into my ear so it melts into some sort of forbidden melody that I would normally never be allowed to listen to.

You’ll think it’s silly or romantic, and both are really unlike me, aren’t they? I'm so quiet, so serious. You tease me for thinking too much, watching the stars and making up stories as to how they were born. Histories, years upon years before you and I ever came to pass, and yet, they’re ours. Yours and mine. Your hand in mine, following the direction of my finger as I look at the stars backwards through your eyes.

When you squeeze my hand, cold fingertips against numb skin-

I swear I can feel it.