“It sounds like you have a request, but this feels like an attack,” I say to him.

“No, this is not an attack. You are constantly misinterpreting me.”

In the dream, the interaction ends. I walk away unaffected. I am intact. I am whole. He has no power over me. I know that he cannot meet my needs and rather than questioning myself, I see him as a pitiful, sad man. Righteous with a fragile ego. He does not see me; all he sees is himself.

I wake up next to Russell, our bodies pressed against each other from shoulder to ankle. My jaw is relaxed. My insides are calm. I haven’t had an empowering, satisfying dream like this in months, years.

Is this the end of the stress dreams? Of waking up every morning shaking, unsteady, and anxious of all that happened in the dreamworld. Is this the end of being afraid?

The trauma unfurls. A brief flash of dramatic beauty, and then then petals fall. Next, the seeds puff out with feathery wings.

A breeze. A breath from a whimsical child.