“I could write a novel about your hands,” I said, feeling her tiny palms caressing my cheeks. She chuckled, possibly thinking it was a joke.

Seldom do I find myself unable to explain specific feelings in words. People experience that with sudden emotions, shocks, or surprises. My brain doesn’t work like that. I find it hard to explain a feeling if I’ve accepted or surrendered enough to it.

It doesn’t sit right with me not to label or put a name on something so moving. But this time, it’s different. I feel that when she utters the words, “Face massage?” with that tiny but voiced punctuation at the end.

Her hands – well, I will write a novel about them even if it takes me a lifetime. I’ve compared her hands to raindrops before, then I saw the reel she posted with the flower. Oh, how jealous I was of that flower in that moment.

She left one flower on the branch while she softly plucked all the others and put them in her bag. I’m that flower. Waiting, so that she comes back and plucks me with her petal hands. Presses her tender fingers against my cheeks and lifts them up.

I crave her hands on this cold night as nothing else can put me to sleep again.

My rose. I’ll hold her heart snugly and let the thorns cut me deep and we’ll watch the petals fall on the ground as we laugh, looking at my bloodied hands.

On the ground, petals.