Snapshot.

I am always looking away from the lens,

I can’t bear to have a straight face captured

And put down forever on film.

If you can’t hold my crooked smile

Tightly in your memory,

Then you don’t remember me like I remember you.

I remember everything.

I remember you used to take pictures of me,

Sitting on the window sill,

Holding hands.

I wonder now how they came out,

Their memory long faded from my brain,

Saying hello to my mind only just today.

We were young,

We were so young,

And there I was,

Staring into your camera as you said:

“Look at me how you looked at him,

Like you loved him,”

And I was so afraid

To show you any love in my eyes.

So I am glancing sideways

To avoid your face,

To keep my eyes away from

What my heart can’t leave behind.

The world is shrinking;

Every day you are closer,

Every day I am farther away

I can’t stay,

I can’t stay,

I can’t say what it is that makes me this way.