On a wall,
Hangs dreams and memories.                  
There hangs inspirations and wanna-bes.  
Love, life, youth, happiness.                        
Even the old to young to have died.

Taken away, gone like a summer breeze.    
The breath of the city stagnant and stale.    
Once so alive, but now                            
frozen in photographs.

We learn as if these people had no souls.          
As if they were nonhuman objects,                
A tumbleweed in the wind.                          
But what we failed to see                            
was the fire that burned in them.

On a wall,
Hangs what I forgot to remember.
There hangs the faces assigned
To the names engraved in memorials
And textbooks and minds.

On a wall,
Hangs the unknown before
To the well known after.
There hangs the dreamers,
The lovers, the futures.

On my mind,
Hangs people that should have been,
But never were, and couldn’t have been.