"These Dreams"

The quiet heat, the balcony distance, the way a stranger’s small, unselfconscious ritual becomes a spark in your day...

These dreams don’t wait for sleep. They come when I open my eyes, when I step away from the desk, when I stare out at the view without really seeing it — until something, someone, interrupts the drift.


A boy. Shirtless.
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Dark‑skinned, Puerto Rican, lit by that sun‑bleached kind of day where everything looks washed in white. I’m on the balcony, not hiding, not spying — just standing there as he drops his bag on the steps and lowers himself into push‑ups, steady and unbothered.


Then he stands.

He pulls the shirt from his swimmer’s‑built frame, unaware that he’s shifted the weather inside my head, nudged the writing mood into a different current. The blog pulls me away from the project for a moment — but only a moment — because this unexpected heat has its own kind of invitation.


I smile at what I’ve witnessed, at the simple fact of it.
I pour another lemonade, the kind I make from scratch, and today — because the day calls for it — I add a splash or two of tequila.


Not to forget the dream.
But to stay awake inside it.