February 2019

1.
I don’t know anything about cameras.
Like I like taking pictures, but anyone can do that, albeit poorly
In high school I occasionally referred to myself as a photographer
Like I bought these three colored lenses for my low quality digital camera
But I never used them for anything great
“This picture could be green now!...or red?...”
I never learned the craft.
I guess you need light to see?
Go figure.
If you don’t have enough, the pictures come out blurry and dark.
I was always frustrated by that;
You can see things so clearly in reality but carrying those moments into the future takes patience, skills sharpened diligently on the rock of failure for years,
And even then, sometimes you can still only barely make out the shapes.
Like you have this box, this time capsule that you can fill with curated content, unrefined material for future memories, but when you go back to look there are holes in the bottom and nothing much is there; just a hue, impressions of space, things and not things, scrambled certainties.
The longing brain fills in the gaps.

2.
We bought disposable cameras on New Years Day.
I pull out those darknesses from time to time
Lay them out on my kitchen table
You’re there in the cafe
Only A Shadow
Like the fucking Cleaners From Venus Song that was probably playing
Hovering right in the foreground
A ghost. A friendly ghost.
There again in front of the post office
I can’t see your face
I know you’re there
I remember that we were there
We bought the cameras
We drank coffee
We walked
The restaurant was too crowded
We had a really nice day
But I can’t see your face
I don’t see you much at all anymore.
Just a hue, impressions of space, things and not things, scrambled certainties.
My longing brain fills in the gaps.

3.

Today there was too much light.
I held up one hand
To block the sun
And waved it
A stiff oscillation
And I called the shadow it cast my love for you
So when I stopped waving
It would be gone.