My Fourth Visit

they are going to slip away
and be lost to time forever
i mutter to myself
surrounded by the clutter
at the back of the store
the fourth time this year
sitting down on the floor
holding this stack of old photos
that was tucked away on the shelf

a stack of old photos
that i keep coming to see
to hold them a while
to extend them a smile
cause they smile back at me too
as if i was someone they knew
from their life long ago
they smile back up at me
inviting me into their mystery

so i whisper down to them
tell me the history you made
the places you loved
the faces you knew
the names you would say
before you started to fade
before you were forgotten on the shelf

they looked up to me and said
it’s a tale too long for today
and those details are dead
but we weren't unlike you
we loved and we hated
we laughed and we cried
we destroyed and created
we lived and we died
now we are in the middle of being forgotten
if only we'd gotten a little more time
oh the things we'd have tried
to not have our last moment for forgetting
be forgotten so soon

our whole life distilled to a snapshot
a cracked sepia-toned square
an old crumbling snapshot
that won’t sell for even a dime

being forgotten is a lonely process shaun
the last moment you’re remembered
arrives just like the rest
one day you exist
and then the next
you’re just gone
and there’s no coming back

this is the fourth time i’m here
but the first time i’ve cried
while i mutter to myself
they are going to slip away
and be lost to time forever
but that is not today

so for the first time
their place on the shelf lays bare
for the first time
they come with me
to the man at the till
who gives me a stare
i hand him the stack
and he says to me

you really cleaned those out
why don’t you take them for half
who else would want an old photo

and i reply with a laugh
i don’t really know

so i walk out the front door
into the shining sun
me looking down at them
them smiling up at me
knowing they’ll be remembered
for at least one more day