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The Romance Wouldn't Slumber, But Bloomed

Sharnelle Guthrie · 2025

This piece began with an image of two people at dinner. The woman was speaking while looking ahead. Beside her, the man had turned completely toward her, drawing himself slightly inward as he watched her with an intensity that made the rest of the room seem almost irrelevant. I wondered what it would feel like to be seen that way. Then another thought appeared: perhaps the longer she spoke, the more his love for her was blooming. The Romance Wouldn't Slumber, But Bloomed grew from that imagined moment. I wasn't thinking about the beginning of attraction, but the quiet experience of affection deepening while nothing particularly extraordinary appears to be happening.