Dora in Bloom
Her face…
is not a face at all.
It is a battlefield,
a cathedral,
a storm broken into light.
Look closer—
violet strikes teal,
crimson devours shadow,
and every fracture… sings.
Do you hear it?
Not the softness of a muse,
not the silence of a portrait—
but the roar of a woman
who refuses to disappear.
Above her—
a crown of flowers,
but not flowers from gardens.
They burn,
they blaze,
they are torches raised
against the night of history.
One eye widens—
black as prophecy.
The other narrows—
a question carved in bone.
Together they hold a gaze
that neither forgives
nor forgets.
Her lips…
curved with the memory of betrayal,
curved with the memory of survival.
A doorway
between silence
and storm.
This is not portraiture.
This is resurrection.
This is what it means
to be broken
and still glitter louder than wholeness.
Dora blooms—
even from ashes,
even from ruins.
Her flowers bend toward us,
her silence roars through us.
And in this moment…
we are not viewers.
We are witnesses.
-Gautam Jha
