A picture is worth a thousand words

Or so they come to say

But that smile in the photograph

I come to know as fake

I close my eyes and imagine it

The you it tends to hides

My decision to envision it

Makes me ache from side to side

What if the photograph

So delicate and quant

Showed what you really are

If only something faint

Would it change your at outlook on things

Or would it be the same

Because the photo is just a photo

A lie upon a frame

The truth behind a photograph

What is there really all to hide

Half-asleep on my lap, embraced against me
The dim light of a soft box paints your face
Formulating the perfect pose
Preserving the unspeakable beauty in my arms

Silence.

Except for the constant clicking of the camera
A few flashes and wham your eyes open, a shred too wide, too curious
And you smile your best

I wrap myself around you
Three clicks happen real quick
My smile mirrored in yours
Pictures of us together
Glimpses of real love caught in the moment
Mine. Yours.
Pure and true
Perfectly happy

Then you go waka waka on the giant bean bag
Sprawling around, contouring its shape, expelling your body in all directions
I holler your name from the top of my lungs
You respond with a scream displaying two pearly whites and a hint of bare gums

As the breeze cools your skin, you splash into the inflatable pool
Rubber fishies swim along, you dunk them one by one
Soapy bubbles blown in the air circle around you, gleaming in the sunshine, revealing your face and burst with a pop
Still unable to sit unassisted, bam you fall into the water
My heart escapes my chest
There is water dripping all over you
I comfort you and brush hair away from your eyes

But I wasn't quite finished yet

You curl up in the fuzzy charms of a teddy
A new found hero in the making

My darling then arrives as a prince entering his humble kingdom
I fall in love with you all over again at the first glimpse
Bitter, reserved, aggressive, brisk, fresh, strong, assorted moments

I said one last photo

The softness of your young skin glowed in a playland of toys
I sit, stare and sigh at how delightful you look
Capturing candid photos of your innocence at play

The evening was getting tired, you drifted back to sleep
It wasn't easy as one would think

I saw you coming from the start
I rewind the times in my heart
A whole world of just you and I
I want it to be more than just a memory
A reminder of the road taken

Here I am, taking in every bit of you and smiling because I know you are all mine

Some moments are not to be captured
not in a photo
not in a story
not anywhere
Some moments should only live in a memory

yellow beams
through dead branches
like broken glass
suspended
above the gutters

broken wood bridge
do not enter
under fences
across train tracks
too dark
it is rarely worth it

boiled emulsion
bubbling sickly beige
solid wafers
of former images
unfit for alien eyes
i watch as the faces
melt
i watch
too long
the strip goes blank
it wasn't much
of a memory
any way

The goldish ring color is fading,
The polaroids are old and dusty,
My heart is cold even though it's pacing.
Tell me darling, in my sleep,
*Is our love gone with the ring?

Electrons vibrate in the air,
Musty and foul in his lair,
Spiders crawl up and rats march the floor,
He gets a knock on his door

Flashes of memories linger,
His heart pounds with anger,
He crumples in anguish,
Death was his only wish.

The daily digest bore him with the rituals of rage,
The day masqueraded as time ticked for his age,
The radio blurted out static messages,
The speeches were of rage.

He opens the door, infallible and absent-minded,
The figure stood 8 feet tall,
Cloak and scythe, the usual routine,
Red sharp eyes peek out with an icy gaze,
“You wanted to take a shot?”

They found him dead on the floor,
He took up more space than he ever wished for,
Flies congregating where once there was a face,
Today the photos show his daze

He was the star of the masquerade,
The news of the digest,
People marched by in a parade,
The tortured soul laid to rest

Vijaya Balan (2010)

flatlands grey and dull cept in nighttime luster
blank screens filled with hollow movement and little else
a transitory space we share with glances and lists
a layer of emulsion that cracks and dissolves, destabilizes
as the light changes
the beauty of space
beauty of absence
the concrete glistens under the artificial stare

The photo, wrinkled and flavored with time,
That passed all too abruptly. But it shows
Smiling faces, eyes closed in laughter's rhyme,
The laughter that ever so smoothly flows

Through my past; it is my favorite mem-
Ory. It lingers in my lowest play
To catch my heart off guard. The waving limb
Of my family tree started with this face.

How blessed to have this fleeting moment caught!
My past, entangled in this candid shot.