The space between the stars above your bed

You meet, briefly. And that beautiful simple moment you thought was so fleeting would turn out to be one you would come to roll over in your mind again and again each day thereafter, like some fragmented piece of film that has no real beginning or end. Each word and expression dissected smaller and smaller until none of it makes sense to you anymore. None of it ever did.

You think it shouldn't linger like this. Like it should have been an opened and closed case like anyone else, but somehow he keeps popping up in front of you when you least expect it. You don't speak when you see him. You internalize and paralyze. He sees you, but headed in the opposite direction. He smiles, and waves. He looks happy. You know he remembers you but has no knowledge of the space he occupies between the stars above your bed.

Sometimes you wave back, sometimes you don't. You go on with your day wondering what your life would be like if you'd never met him. You don't speak of him to anyone. You run. And run. And run and run until he's all gone and all that's left there is you. You rest your weary head against your pillow only to find he still lingers in the space between the stars above your bed