Whispers Against Your Pulse

The city is exhaling a long, cool breath as the sun dips low, but I am still carrying his warmth like an invisible mantle. It lingers on my collarbone—a faint heat that makes the silk of my bodice feel heavy and intimate against my skin.
Every time the wind brushes past, it carries the scent of rain-slicked pavement mixed with a trace of jasmine from the flowers nestled in my hair. I can still taste that phantom sensation: his thumb tracing the curve of my wrist for just three seconds too long at the bistro tonight. It was enough to set my pulse into a frantic rhythm, a steady thrumming beneath my skin that refuses to slow down.
I stand here on this bustling corner, an island of gold and velvet in a sea of grey stone. People rush past me like shadows, but I am hyper-aware of the friction between fabric and flesh, the way my breath hitches whenever a stranger’s gaze lingers too close for comfort. My skin feels sensitized—every nerve ending reaching out to catch a stray current of air or the ghost of his touch.
I reach up to adjust one petal on my hair, feeling its soft velvet texture against my fingertips. In this city that never stops moving, I am trying to hold onto something still and slow: the way he looked at me as if I were the only thing in focus. My body is a living map of his presence—the heat where we touched, the lingering scent on my sleeve, and the quiet fever burning behind my ribs.

Editor: Pulse