You were in my orbit. Or I was in yours. The first moment was a slight cataclysm which happens when the universe aligns. Did you feel that alignment of the planets? You would tell me later, that you were startled by the connection you felt. You said it was deep and instant and surprising. I was surprised to. You couldn’t know how many times, my hands have reached out to take a strangers or how many smiles ask to be returned. You couldn’t know how many rooms like this I have been in. You couldn’t know how many of those moments I dismissed, ready to move into the rest of my day. But not you. You, I wanted to know. You intrigued me. Maybe it was your eyes? They seemed to see right through into the center of me, that part that no one ever saw. Did you feel the world still as I did when we exchanged names, when you touched me? I looked into your eyes and all the noise in my head, the constant churning of chaos stilled. Could you guess that my whole body filled with surety about you that should not have made sense. Did you think we made sense? Maybe you heard my exhale of acceptance. Right before the world started again with the soft shush of waiters setting the tables around us and the discreet answer of a phone, you began to speak but all I saw were words dancing all around you, sentences, stanzas, falling over each other in a way they had been absent for me for years. A rush. A whoosh of inspiration. 21 floors high, a dwarf in terms of Singapore’s stratosphere but high enough to see that everything would change. And so it began.