Nightmares

I still get nightmares.
Nightmares that sound funny in morning,
but not so funny at 3 am.

When I am shaken awake by one of these, sweaty and breathless with fear, my hands grope for you.

I am sure you would tell me that it's just a nightmare and that in reality:

1) I am not in the exam hall, unprepared or late.

2) People I love aren't leaving me broken- unapologetic, screaming at me.

3) I am not being ridiculed as mental.

4) I am not losing my teeth.

And so on as it goes with nightmares.

So I still get nightmares and when I do, I do exactly what you used to say.
I sit up in the bed, have a glass of water and remember my uneventful day.

You said recalling the quotidian reality makes nightmares less scary.
And it does.

You see, another right thing you always said.

It's only when you maroon me for about 1000th time in my nightmare,
my nightmares and reality converge.

And let me tell you,
No matter how many glasses of water I have, it doesn't make it any less scary than it is.