What Falls Out

A Polaroid fell out—

me and someone, years ago,

both young, both about

to disappear into a life below

the one we're living now.

The colors have faded,

the blue and the bough

of the tree behind us, degraded

by time and by dust.

Our faces are still

bright enough to trust,

still young enough to feel

the weight of forever.

But we didn't. We split.

I haven't seen her

in a decade, and it

feels like a betrayal

to find this now,

proof of the failure

we didn't know how

to name back then.

I could throw it away.

I won't. I'll hold it again,

this photograph, this way

of remembering

what we were

before the diverging

paths, before

we became strangers

to each other, before

we forgot how to anchor

ourselves in what we swore

we'd never lose.

I can't unknow it now.

I've made my choice

to keep it. I'm bowed

under the weight

of my younger self's

certainty, this fate

of watching yourself fail.