The first time I saw you was like an electric shock – a minimal one, like I accidentally rubbed my hands on something soft and touched a cord, some wire, felt that little zap through my pointer finger and bones; you became a wake-up call the more I showed up, and you were there, too, and we didn't speak for so long, or very much at all, but I think I must have always felt your energy from the moment you appeared to the moment I clocked out to go home. Maybe I wrote you off because you already had someone, and I had too much anger and lust inside of me I'd often misplace with the wrong kind of tongues. We skipped through the bullshit; I went to the crystal shop thirty minutes before you arrived, and just barely missed your appearance while I was driving away. Energies connected, physical bodies still separate. We both got each other gifts from there, and I thought: Hm, what a fucking coincidence! A twist of fate! Universe, I called, are you fucking with me at this point? The universe was not fucking with me. It led me to you through trails of sunflowers, love that would shine through orbs of light in the forests of Shasta, waves crashing against the beachfront following the first night we kissed, and held each other the next day on the edge of rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean. I wrote everything that seeped into my heart and through my scribbling hands about you. I wrote it into this house, this book, the way the universe intended, as we wished it would.