During the day, you can't see a single star.

But they are all up there, every one of them.

The sun is just too bright.

Stars don't come out at night.

They were there all along.

It just has to get dark enough to see them.

There is a story I have been meaning to tell you, Mishu.

It begins long before we met.

Some people, you meet.

Some people, you remember.

First lifetime

Maybe we were two rivers, born on different mountains, that found the same sea.

Second lifetime

Maybe you were the moon, and I was the tide that kept coming back to you.

Third lifetime

Maybe we were two lamps, lit in the same window.

Fourth lifetime

Maybe I was a comet, and you were the warmth I kept finding my way back to.

Fifth lifetime

Maybe we were two stars, circling the same empty space until it was not empty anymore.

Sixth lifetime

Maybe we were two halves of one constellation, waiting on opposite sides of the sky.

Seventh lifetime

And in this one,

our parents introduced us.

We talked, and it felt easy,

as if we had done it before.

Then the sky went quiet for a while.

You needed some time.

Until the 3rd of August,

when you wrote to me first.

From then on, it felt like you had always been there,

like a star in daylight, only waiting to be seen.

Something in me has been quietly blooming ever since.

So when they asked us, we both said yes.

We do not have many photographs yet.

Only a few. I look at them the way you look at proof.