the star, the devil

after a strange dream, really a moving collage of memories with you on the fringes, a stack of cards told me it meant an end, a book and a database, all compiled by people i've never met or spoken to, told me personally that it was time to move on. to leave this place, to go to another, or that i'd maybe even arrived someplace new already.
but i miss your driveway.
i could have been a fucking creep so many times, and i came close, believe me. i just wanted to see that tree in front, park across the street, and see you look out the window or open the door. i wanted to know if your car was there, if you even still drive the same car, what you might be doing in your room (and whether it looked the same) or wherever else you might be. it's too much to wonder sometimes, wonder what course of action could have made it so i was meant to be there. but no, i'm a ghost, and you're a shoebox in a dream. you don't want to think about me, and i bet that if you do, you feel the sort of discomfort like passing nausea or an awkward glance from someone with whom you used to share secrets. if you don't believe i ever cared, don't think i really kept those secrets, don't think i treasured those tiny spaces and workings of fingertips and eyelashes, well you should take this (me, here, miles and miles away and even further in time and actions and regrets and everything else filling this distance) to prove you wrong. it is the most comfortable ache i know now (of all the aches that have settled into my heart over this time, most of which have nothing to do with you) to wonder about you, about what could have been, to indulge myself not to forget each dream you appear in (there are sparse now) and to allow myself to believe over this time the products of my unconscious are some universal cue that you've forgiven me, or maybe even that a chance encounter will confirm that, one day.
no, nothing about you is for me anymore, i'm allowed only the memories i chose to keep, and those i didn't soil with foolishness. it's hard to live a life based on what ifs, but for now they are all i have, and i admit, i'm getting better at it.