When Memory Turns Bitter

The old photograph fluttered out of the album,

a grainy snapshot of laughter, warmth wrapped in light,

my parents, young and free, before the fights came,

before the silence that echoed in darkened nights.

For a moment, I could almost reach through the years,

feel the pulse of a past where love didn’t sting,

but then a weight presses down,

a memory shifts, and the warmth starts to cling.

How fleeting that joy, like smoke in the air,

turning bitter, its sweetness now long gone,

a moment I hold, fragile as a prayer,

a flicker of hope, then I find myself drawn.