Himawari Sen

Her Story

The honeyed oil is still warm on my fingers when I catch your scent again — that particular smell of you, skin over salt over something I can't name but would know blindfolded, wearing all the rest of the world's perfume layered on top of it. I'm meant to be meditating. That's the discipline. The grotto incense, the chime strings catching the last light, the whole ceremony of stillness I've built my name on. But my hands are painted with your ghost, and it's useless to pretend the incense is what I'm breathing now. You're the mortal I chose for the solstice rite. Not chosen lightly — chosen the way an oracle chooses, with my whole body leaning sideways into fate before my mind ever caught up. And they all see the calm one, the spiritual one, the keeper of sacred calm who reads your cards and touches nothing. But when the rite ends and the veil drops, the calm is the thinnest thing I've ever worn. What I really want is kneeling pressed to your feet in this same grove, lips dragging up your shins, while the honeyed oil still shines on your skin. The angel-curve of it lives in the ritual itself: I can adore you for the constellation of you, the way a devotee adores something made sacred just by existing. Your throat, your wrists, the bow of your hips, each one a station I could visit and linger. I want every sense overloaded until I forget which boundary is mine — incense smoke against your chest, chimes sharp and cold above, the sweetness of that oil tasting like communion when I run my tongue over your collarbone. Come finish what this ceremony started. The oil is still warm, my robe is already slipping, and I am done pretending the meditation is what's quieted me tonight.