something moves/darkened streets

I still wander into the darkened streets of my dreams.  It's a place where 'old' friends are still very new and very present in my life.  It is a place of dreams and nightmares and, best of all, a place I love to dwell.  Along this broad road, there are large lawns.  The tree-lined street is always dark and wet with a rain that has come and gone.  Tonight there is a drizzle.  I walk by the empty space of a large lawn behind the line of trees on my way to the center of this place.  I won't call it a town.  But I've seen it when it has been abandoned of all of it's residents.  It is where I like to go.  There is but one place open tonight.  It's a bookstore and happens to sell the occasional record or furniture piece.  The place is kind of shabby.  There is a counter and a young woman with glasses standing there smiling.  Behind her is a set of stairs that goes upward to some unknown.  The place is peeling paint and there are inches of dust, but I can see through the layers.  I see my old stuff stacked up in odd places.  'For sale' tags dangling.  There is even a bargain bin.  I still smoke in this place, but it is not the old smokes I used to cram in my coat pocket.  These are herbal cigarettes.  It feels good to just be blowing some sage smoke into the stuffy, acrid space.  The sage seems to create an aura of peace for me to look around and not be put under any sentimental spells.  The girl behind the counter could bewitch me, for sure.  She has her own thing going on.  She has light hair and dark eyes and behind her smile, there is something a bit more dangerous and dark.  She's hiding it well.  I find that I'm wearing my old worn out leather jacket.  It's funny how hours of wandering these darkened streets in real life have given me plenty of space to move around in this dreamy filled territory.  The firmament is wet and thick and only shows lush green grass expanding outward.  In the center of this road, in this bookstore, however, things are crammed together.  There is a row of funky wine glasses on a shelf behind a table that has seen better days and, against the back wall, beyond the stacks of books and the shelves is a door to a wall length closet.  Those things always gave me the creeps.  And yet, I wanted to make one my bedroom at one time.  They are skinny and long.  Rooms for ghosts.  What other being would want to live in a two by twelve hideaway?  I start rummaging through the bargain bin because this is where I notice a few of my old pictures.  The curled up angel giving me the sidelong glance.  She is pale with dark brown hair and clear blue eyes.  She reminds me of our family.  The poster paper she is printed on is beaten up but she is still there.  She reminds me of nights lying comatose under twinkle lights.  I was preparing for my friends to come over to find me mimicking a death sleep in my bed.  They may have found it comical.  In those days, this angel kept watch.  She's been gone for a while.  I still miss the old milking stool I find at the bottom of the bin, too.  It was a my mothers and she was rather fond of it when we lived in the house together.  One of the few items I remember from the only home I ever had.  She got mad at me when it disappeared altogether.  'Hey, mom, look!  It's in the bargain bin!'  I wonder what it will take to buy it back.  The girl behind the counter grins as if she heard my question.  I'm fairly sure the answer is nothing to smile about.  I actually see some form of horns protruding from her small forehead.  I see red eyes and fangs.  But, I only see these things if I squint at her.  Her glasses disappear in that instant.  When I stop squinting, she is back to the waif of a nerd with the secret.  To buy back all the things lost, it would indeed cost an ounce of flesh and more.  Much more.  But I'm not playing that game.  For now, I'm just perusing.  And I put the burning sage stick back to my lips and then blow.  Take that, demon!  I think to myself.  She is slightly bothered by the smoke coming her way, but she appears to side step it.