M.

Her picture fell down today. She is framed on my dresser, and also above my desk. Four years ago we thought the black and white prints were artistic - now the grayscale fittingly adds age, makes the past seem even more distant.

I can't bring myself to replace the picture. It fell so purposely from the pegboard above my desk and landed on the rack that holds my jewelry. The picture is askew in the cheap plastic frame, and tilted just-so, her expression loses some of its skepticism. I like that.

I'm still not sure why I've built a shrine to her photos, both those of her and those she took of me. She got me right on film; she made the camera know me like she did. I thought I had captured her as well, but out of her half of the roll of film, I chose to frame two unlikely pictures: her facial expression critical at best in one, and her lying on the grass, eyes shut, in the other. Maybe I captured her as well as I thought, and at the time I let myself believe that blind and sassy were just the faces she put on for the camera.

I'm still bitter, but I think the little swell I get in my chest, the way my throat still catches a little when I look at these pictures, is love.