I Remember You Like A Photograph

Write the date on the back of the photograph, and write what you were thinking when I took this picture of you, sitting quietly by the window, listening to someone smoking and humming in the next window to your left, with the curtains drawn aside, and the street below was filled with timid footsteps of people going home in the dark.

I look at the pictures I took of your eyes, and the way your hands wrapped around mine, the way our toes were lying idly alongside each other, in the summer afternoons when the earth was burning and the sky was sighing down on us, I wish I could have captured the wind that blew through the open window that made the curtains flap, making them look like red wings tied to a wounded bird, I wish I could have photographed the silence that lingered in the room, between our bodies, between our thoughts, between our heartbeats, between our hands, lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, the rotating fan on the table, the drops of condescension of the cold water on the carpet, and your silence, your pretty silence, with all the right words held back by a frown.

I wish I could see that frown again, I would kiss it away, I could try once again.

I wish I could photograph every evening we sat in front of each other and watched the shadow of the setting sun on each other’s face, the headlights and blaring horns of the cars on the nearby highway, the cool air on the third floor, the darkness in our room, the noise of the downstairs neighbour’s rocking chair, moving slowly like a leaf floating on the waves of a lake,

I wish I could capture the look in your eyes when I looked at you and never looked away for even a second, I wish I wouldn’t forget it all as time passed by.

Most of all I wished I could remember what you were thinking on all the nights, when we slept with the light on, we never saw the moon anymore, the stars ceased to matter, I wish I knew what you were thinking, I wish you knew what I was thinking, I wish you knew I was thinking of you, all the time, all the time, I wish you knew I was thinking of you thinking of me too, but I never found it all, I never the found the truth, I never found the lies, now all I am left with taste of memories fading from my head and I keep writing what I remember on the back of the photographs and all I remember of you are your silences.