I stood there in front of the mirror for ages, waiting, but when I finally noticed her, she was already all over me.

There is gold dust in my hair, on my face, drifting between my fingers as I hold up my hands in disbelief. She is here! Here in the air around me, no longer a vague potential. Formless, yes, but present and real. I am speechless with anticipation.

Is that a whisper? I have listened to her voice in my dreams, her voice made of light. Her voice, the singularity in my cosmos, compelling me with mad gravity. Sing, she says.

Am I already singing? Is that my voice or hers? My image in the mirror looks the same, pleasantly unglamorous, growing slowly older. Except that now there is gold dust on my lips. I smile. I can’t help it.

I am dreaming in the waking world. My carefully maintained lines and limits become strange and unseemly, here, now. I let them go.

The wind is blowing, star-filled and endless. She holds my hands and ripples like a banner. See? (she says). This is how we fly.