No. No I won't look at you.
I won't look at the pictures or your face, or my face.
I won't look at your smile.
I refuse to look at our smiles.
It's not fair.
No, it's not.
It's not fair that you don't remember us.
The world we created.
Not fair.
It was everything.
We promised and loved and vowed until our young hearts could not.
Even though I left- I left!- it's not OK to forget me like that.
The pictures.
Burn them.
Yes, burn them.
No don't keep them.
You're not allowed to keep them.
You can't choose what you want to keep.
Take it all or leave it all.
That's why I don't look at the pictures.
I keep them but I don't look.
I can't look.
Not at your face, or my face.
Or your smile.
Our smiles.
Did you keep the pictures?
What did you do with them?
Do you see what I see?
Our smiles?
The innocence in our eyes, so full of wonder.
We didn't know the meaning of heartbreak,
of sorrow.
Some of us did, but we pretended we didn't, for the sake of the innocent.
I packed the pictures away.
They are all I have left of our world.
Of what we were.
That's as much as I allow myself to remember.
Not more, because more would be unfair.
To me.
To myself.
The pain.
It was buried, but our smiles bring it back.
It can't come back.
No.
So I keep it away.
The pictures with your face and my face and your smile.
Our smiles.
You forgot me.
Forgot us.
I vowed myself I wouldn't forget.
But unrequited love is a treacherous thing.
And the more I heard of how your were doing after I left,
it started getting easier to forget.
Not us, but what we lost.
The time lost.
The love lost.
The promises unkept- I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
To me.
For forgetting.
For quiting.
But I couldn't look at our faces.
No one saw the storm coming!
It wasn't my fault!
It's easy to stab someone in the back when they trust you, their backs turned to you.
And it hurts.
So to the younger me, I'm sorry!
I'm sorry you had to protect yourself from bright smiles and knifes and pretty pictures.
I'm sorry for leaving.
I didn't have a choice, but everything is easier when you have someone to blame.
I know that.
And I will be the one you can blame, until you heal.
I'm sorry.
For letting go,
of the person we could have become.
I shouldn't let go, but why should I water a plant that is already dead?
So.
I will keep the pictures for your sake.
And I hope the future me is brave enough to look at the pictures,
your face, and my face.
Your smile.
Our smiles.
And maybe one day,
I can look at you.
7/5/2021
