There was a picture of us, pristine and unwrinkled,
Held in eager, loving hands.
The sparkling eyes intently scanning the faces, careful not to miss a single detail,
Determined to capture every piece of joy behind those vibrant green irises.
They saw us laughing, our hearts completely entwined.
A million memories captured on glossy paper.
They watch as
We’re discussing nothing and our combined efforts create thernana…
Our tentative inexperience somehow yields two platefuls of fluffy white eggs…
We’re slow dancing in the silence, quietly revolving on a tiled kitchen floor, gracefully leaning into each other…
I stand in your doorway, a slender figure in the shadows wearing nothing but your oversized shirt, the corners of my mouth pushed upwards by happiness that bubbled over from my heart…
We allow gravity to pull us to your carpet as we ponder, and embrace Joni’s soprano as it fills our head and our hearts with poetry…
I stumbled, knocking the framed beauty off the shelf.
Tumbled to the floor.
Corners forever bent, faces permanently creased.
No longer sleek and glossy…
And I’m to blame.
Then the green, searching eyes stopped shining, dulled by a quiet pain.
The dark eyebrows knit in confusion and desperation, and the hands, picking up the fallen photograph, began to shake.
The tense fingers hesitated, and then decidedly ripped the picture in half,
Tearing each joyous scene again and again until they were indiscernable, unrecognizable.
Almost immediately the eyes opened wide in disbelief, realizing.
They cried out to the hands, “How could you have destroyed something so beautiful, created with so much love?”
The hands frantically worked to put the pieces back together,
To restore the flawless joy to it’s glossy whole.
I watch, the panicked energy threaded through with hope,
And I appreciate such noble intention,
But I know it’s too late…
Finally, with immense sadness, I gently take those frantic hands in mine,
Interrupting their desperate task.
I half-heartedly smile, as if to say, “Enough, my love.”
Then I gathered up the tiny pieces in my cupped hands.
Everyone seems to want to believe that I spit on them,
Crushed them into a finer dust,
Burned them while disdain glowed in my eyes.
The truth is, I carefully placed them in a drawer
In a crumpled heap.
I often look at them,
Carefully fingering each mournful piece as I lay them out,
Trying to remember what they looked like
When they were part of a whole, free of finger smudges and creases.
Help me put the pieces back together…
