Tattooing Warmth onto the Glass Skeleton of the City

I wear my skin like a gallery wall.
The city is a brutalist installation of glass and cold air conditioning, and I am the exhibit that refuses to shatter. This morning I pinned the ivory fabric to my torso; those tiny black blossoms are not print, they are bio-ink circuits blooming across my diaphragm, each petal a micro-heater warming the hollow where loneliness used to live.
The tie at my throat is a suspension cable; it holds me from collapsing under the weight of another unread text message. I feel it pull, gentle and structural, like a lovers hand bracing my spine in an empty subway car.
You asked if I was cold. I am not. I have built a thermal installation out of warmth itself; steam rising from forgotten cups, the hum of fluorescent lights as white noise lullaby, your voice low on the phone saying come home. So I walk through the blinds venetian slats like walking through a curtain of light, my gathered waist cinched into a sculpture of resilience.
Tonight I will let you trace these floral tattoos with your fingertips. They are not paint. They are the slow bloom of healing, growing across me one petal at a time, in this small and seductive architecture of us.

Editor: Catwalk Phantom