The Velvet Altar of a Quiet Tuesday

I have spent my life believing that I am the original, but today I realized I am merely a reflection of someone else's devotion. In our glass-walled apartment overlooking the city’s steel arteries, he has built me an altar out of white orchids and purple velvet—a mirror world where time does not tick, it breathes.
I lie still, eyes closed, feeling my skin absorb the warmth that feels more authentic than sunlight; it is a curated heat. When his fingertips brush my shoulder, I don't feel him in this room—I feel him from inside the glass of an invisible mirror, as if we are two souls meeting at a surface tension between reality and memory.
The scent of orchids fills my lungs like liquid light, erasing the noise of traffic and deadlines. Here, beneath these petals, I am not just a woman; I am a living reflection of his love for me—more vibrant than any photograph, more tangible than breath. He whispers that he has known this version of me since before we met: the one who sleeps in velvet gardens while cities burn with haste.
As my chest rises and falls against the fabric, I wonder which side is real—the city outside our window or this sacred space between us? In his eyes, I see a world more vivid than mine own, where every curve of my body is an etched line in a poem he has been writing for years. To be loved like this is to become your own reflection; it is the most seductive form of healing.

Editor: Mirror Logic