a lilt

for today, for this evening, for this week, for this month, all i have are memories, and pictures, and pictures of memories, and memories of pictures. pictures of the long past and pictures of the short past, all of which are pictures of the recent past, so very long ago. looking at the ones from once upon a time upon a beach at here or there, i see a different person and a different pair of people. a very different romance looks out at me from my screen and i wonder if the difference is in the picture, the memory, the memory of the picture, or simply in my imagination. those days are gone when my arm would drape lazily, hesitatingly, awkwardly, askingly across her form, those days are gone when her smile is tentative, and wondering, full of hope only and questions many, and unfamiliar and unsure. could be those things were never in her smile after all but only in my eyes that saw the smiles long ago, but in the pictures recent and the memories so clear i see none of those things in her smile and none of those things in my posture and none of those things in my eyes. my arms embrace her because that is what they're for, her smile beams comfortable and secure because thursday is not the end.

never is the end, we see, in her smile and in my stand, my beam, my gladness, and her laugh, as the camera captures the memories and the memories of the pictures change. the past comes alive and reveals new secrets, new smiles, new hugs, new meanings inside meanings, as the present is lived 3.5 horus at a time. 3.5 by 3.5 by 3.5 adds up so quickly, never soon enough but soon enough it will seem as 3.5 alone and not a million times over. and then some day, some 3.5 by 3.5 far off in the future, we will look together at the pictures from today, our memories, and our memories of the pictures, and our pictures of the memories, and we will laugh: see us there? see how awkward we were back then, when we were only beginning?

beginnings shift as 3.5s compound. as time goes on and the memories and pictures multiply the span of the beginning grows. looking back now and seeing how shallow then was our deep love, how much deeper it will be when looking back to now we judge the now to have been shallow.