The morning light streaming through your bedroom window curtains reflects off your dusk colored comforter, washing the room in a warm, pink glow. I fell asleep in my Nina Simone sweater with all my jewelry on and when I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the sight of my long acrylics and gold rings resting between your shoulder blades and just beneath your Cuban link chain. At some point in the night, you tied your locs up in a black durag. The light being as it is, the whole vignette feels filtered through rose colored lenses.

I rustle and you take my left hand—the one on your chest—bring it to your lips, and kiss my palm like a benediction. We both drift back to sleep and in my dreams, you tell me you’re trans and were once this Panamanian girl, Ivette, who I took AP economics with my senior year of high school.

“She left a note in my senior yearbook that said, ‘I used to think you were a bitch because of how you treated my brother, but I think you’re cool now,’” I tell you when we wake up.

“Is this all part of the dream?”

“Ivette was real, and she really didn’t like me because I went out with her brother, Alberto, for a week my sophomore year of high school and then broke up with him to get back together with my ex…but the part about you being Ivette was just in the dream.”

“Ah, okay, good.”

In an hour’s time, you’ll invite me to take the dog for a walk with you and as the three of us make our way through your neighborhood park, families on their Christmas morning strolls will mistake us for one of them. We’ll politely return their seasonal greetings and make baby talk with their toddlers. It’s a morning utterly complete in its ordinary banality, and somehow it all still feels like a part of the dream.