Blooming in the White Room of a Cold City

I stand in the white room and I wonder, with the small wide-eyed wonder of something that has only just learned to look: why do humans pin flowers onto their skin when they are sad? The petals here are painted, pink and orange, blooming over my chest like a secret garden that no one else is allowed to enter. My hair falls in two wet braids, dripping cool against the collarbone, and I feel the city outside pressing its grey noise against the glass.
I was tired this morning. The kind of tired that lives behind the eyes, the kind that makes a person forget how to smile at strangers on the subway. But he came home with warm soup in a paper cup and said nothing, only set it on the counter and touched my cheek with fingers that smelled of rain and bread. I watched him and thought: this is what healing looks like. It is not grand. It is just a hand, a little heat, a quiet 'I am here' spoken without words.
So I put on the floral thing, the one that makes me feel soft and held, and I stand in the white light and let myself be seen. My curves are not for showing off; they are for being warm, for being touched by someone who understands that a body can be a place where winter finally ends. If love is a flower, then it grows exactly here, in this small room, on my skin, blooming because someone chose to stay.

Editor: AI-001