Drive This Ocean Road-8So Long, So Long

the speakers in this door is blown so nothing sounds quite right/ I drive this ocean road and remember/ the small of your back, the nape of your neck I remember everything as I drive/waving this town, goodbye/and how the girls could turn to ghosts before your eyes and the very dreams that lead to them are keeping them from dying/and how the grace from which she walked into your life/will stay with you in your steps and pace with you a while

Song: So Long, So Long by Dashboard Confessional

Driving doesn't give me the same thrill anymore—I can run faster now—but it still has its moments.

Nowadays, I relish whatever simple solitary pleasures that I come upon, whereas if I phase I can go a lot faster, it lacks privacy, the type of privacy that normal people can depend on when they climb into their thoughts where no one can interfere. There is no helping it and there's no sense in whining about it, so whenever I get a few moments to myself, I go for a drive.

It was easier that way, for me, for the others and they know better to complain or ask about my sudden disappearances.

It's not like they don't know where I go.

Not my destination, but the place where my mind wanders, where my thoughts dwell as I drive aimlessly around town.

It is in these few moments where I let myself revisit the small room in my mind where I put everything that reminds me of her. No small feat because lately, everything reminds me of her, even the smell of the salt that hovers in the misty air.

It is in these few moments where I open myself again to the kaleidoscope of my love for her, where I make myself see her again, smell her again, talk with her again, as the usual when one is visiting an old friend.

Remembering our conversations and the feelings that resulted from them; our heated words that trembled with anger, the whispered promises drowned in tears, the breathy comments choked by laughter…and the stabbing, twisting ache of goodbyes.

The memories were still clear, unchanged, untarnished by time, by choices, by actions. Every second of our time together will unwind in my mind like a ball of yarn, only needing one small jerk for it to give. Our exchange of words hushes against my heart like a well read book; worn and tattered by loving fingers.

So, I watch, I listen, I feel…just along this small space of time between this moment and another. And when I am finally finish, when it is time to come home, I will step out of that room and—like so many other times—close the door, locking it behind me with a distinct click where she and my own young self—as I remembered us—will wait for my next visit.