i look through
the photos on my phone
afraid
of forgetting,
of being forgotten.
i collect memories,
my memories:
the mutant strawberry,
that was really three,
connected
by the stem
from a hot july lunch,
how the sun brushed
and painted itself on the trees
outside my window
on a morning late last winter,
the way the clouds
breathed and
rested themselves
against the ocean
on a cool august day.
they prove to me
that i am real
that i am in other people’s
memory collections and will not be
forgotten.
“a picture is worth a thousand words“
yet here i am,
writing,
because there are some things
that have to be written
to be understood.

Photo by Julius Drost on Unsplash