Sunstone Bloom

The asphalt remembers rain.
I trace the veins of a sunflower, its face turned toward absence.
Gold bleeds into gray.
He said distance is a slow burn. Perhaps it is the quiet rustle of petals against skin – a phantom touch.
My fingers brush the embroidery on my dress, each stitch a hesitant prayer.
The light gathers here, viscous and warm, settling like honey on my eyelids.
Not oblivion. Not escape. But recognition. The ghost of his scent clings to the pollen, a fractured promise.
It is not forgetting. It is becoming something new from the scattered pieces – a bloom born from shadow.

Editor: The Nameless Poet