And as I spied you in the wall-length mirrors facing the elliptical machines, I couldn’t help but stare in a sneaky fashion, pretending to wipe sweat off my head as I sat on the abdominal crunch bench, watching you on the elliptical, legs pumping in perfect rhythm with the music in my headphones.

A latino boy/man, probably in this mid-twenties, but still teenaged in the face, black hair, piercing deep brown eyes, dark tan skin, wearing a black tanktop and shorts. Perfect. You knew just how to dress for the gym. Black against brown is my total weakness. Good job, my friend.

As I rested between sets of crunches, I watched you covertly, trying my best not to be the type of dirty old man I hate to see in the gym, cruising shamelessly, eating up valuable exercise time. Your torso was broad, defined, nearly hairless in a natural way. Your legs were slightly out of proportion, skinnier, but somehow this made you all the more appealing.

But it was your face, your nearly flawless face, that stopped me cold. Square jaw, thick eyebrows, closely cropped black hair, sideburns framing your outline, fading into a three-day stubble, eyes set ahead, gazing intently at your reflection, driving your workout. Your beauty made it almost too painful to stare at you for too long – it was almost like I needed to look at you through a pinprick in a piece of cardboard, in order to avoid retina burns.

It was then that my iPod shuffle function spoke to me:

And it seemed so real, I can see it,
And it seemed so real, I can feel it,
And it seemed so real, I can taste it,
And it seemed so real, I can feel it,
So whyyyyyyy can’t I touch it?