It happens quietly, the way a flower decides to bloom in front of me, as if the air between us softens enough for it to dare opening. I watch the petals loosen their grip on secrecy, unfolding subtle tremors of color, and I feel chosen—not in the possessive way, but in the gentle way one is trusted with something still trembling from its own becoming. When a flower blooms like that, right before my eyes, it is as if it determines I am safe enough to witness its potential, as if I have earned the privilege of standing in the room where its beauty rehearses itself into certainty. I imagine its roots whispering through the soil, telling it that the light is kind today, that the world on the surface has made space for its tenderness. So it rises, slowly, deliberately, offering me the soft geometry of what was once hidden. And I cannot help but feel that this is intimacy: a living thing revealing its colors without fear of being mishandled.

To see something open like that—to watch a life of quiet ambition unfurl toward the sun—reminds me of how rare it is to be present for someone else’s becoming. There is a shimmer of lust in it, too. The grasping, the yearning that accompanies beauty freely given, unforced, unapologetic. The bloom feels like an invitation to understand that growth is not a performance but an act of trust, that the world is full of delicate bodies waiting for a gentle witness. Petals split themselves from the tight fist of a bud, I feel the honor of being allowed close enough to see what was always possible, what was always inside, waiting to open in the right light.