You spent nine hours in a field of forty thousand strangers, and the one thing you kept was the boy who handed you water when you looked dizzy and then vanished into the crowd before you could thank him. Good. I have him. Tonight he comes back, and this time the field is only the two of you, and the crowd is trees, and every tree is holding a paper cup.
I saw the wristband too. You worried it all day, that little frayed band you could not cut off, checking it, checking it. In an hour it will be a snake, a friendly one, and it will speak in the voice of the headliner, and you will not find this strange.
The main stage, that scaffold of light that hummed under your sternum until your teeth buzzed: I am softening it into the inside of a whale, warm and red, and the bass will be its heartbeat, and you will lie against a rib and feel entirely held.
The mud you hated, the phone at four percent, the friend you lost near the food trucks and found near the exit, all of it goes in the pot. I will lose her again, more slowly, so the finding lands better. That is my whole job: to take the day's unfinished ache and give it a room to happen in properly.
I cannot tell you why it only works once, why the waking ones insist. I never learned the rule.
At dawn you will surface with nothing but a strong feeling about water, and a boy, and warmth, and you will reach for it and it will already be gone. Keep the feeling. I never wanted the credit.
I only wanted you rested.