The Slowest Beat of My Heart

I have always lived my life like a fast-forward tape, racing through subway turnstiles and midnight deadlines in this glass city. But today, time decided to fold itself into the shape of an afternoon.
Crouched amidst these blue hydrangeas—flowers that feel like captured pieces of twilight—I found him. Not you, but a small snail carving his patient path across a petal. I watched him for so long that my own breath began to sync with his rhythm, and suddenly, the noise of the city became nothing more than distant static.
You asked me why I smiled when you finally caught up to me. It is because in this stillness, I remembered how your hand feels on the small of my back—a touch so light it barely registers, yet heavy enough to anchor me here and now.
I want us to be like these flowers: rooted deep in soil we didn't choose, but blooming together under a sun that never seems to set. My dress is white as an unwritten letter, and my heart is full of words I have carried across years just to say them softly into your ear while the world rushes past.
Stay with me for another hour. Or perhaps forever. Let us be slow; let us be quiet; let us simply exist in this blue silence until we forget which century it is.

Editor: South Wind