dispatch to a distant muse from my freakish subconscious

I dream that my teeth are falling out, this terror the sole remaining stress of a traumatic spring. I awake, check my mouth (nothing missing), stare at the ceiling fan. Two dentists and a full set of X-rays name the nightmares for trauma and nothing more--yet when they come, they are real. Realer than many things I've felt in my waking life.

I go to the internet where I always have company, announce my sleeplessness to the gmail-o-sphere, check my mail, click here and there, and calm my breathing. I am reminded of you, of nightmare-speak, of facing the terror of a lucid dream. Soon I am ready to brave the bed. By now you are certainly awake.

Sometime between awake and asleep, you tell me I shouldn't be afraid. This works, I think, because I sleep. And perhaps it is closer to the borderline of dream, because in the dreamscape you send me a package--a message, a missive, a video. When I realize it is from you, I think maybe it will be you, but it is not--it is footage of other things. I wonder its relevance, this footage of things that are not you and that have no discernible connection to me, and then I realize: it's a project of yours. You are sending me something... from something you are working on... the details, the whats and wheres irrelevant, even the fact that it manifests as video in the dream... just the idea that it's something... something you are proud of.

"I did this thing and I am proud of it," the excerpts seem to say. "And I need someone to be proud of it with me."

And I just want to say that I am. Whatever it is, I'm proud of you.

And thanks for helping me sleep again.