I stare at your photos

Beach holidays and

Swimming pools

Healthy smiles

Scattered through family gatherings

Your eyes do not betray any knowledge

Of what’s to come.

No drop in the corner of your lips

No obtusely angled eyebrow

No crack in your happiness

To indicate you know it’s all going to end.

And why would you?

I can’t tear myself away

The jarring nature of such joy

Now reframed.

The horror of the present

Mocked by the thumbnails of the past

Sello-taped to the white-washed walls

Above your bed

Spatters of sadness that catch my eye

And instil in me a selfish woe

That this could happen to me.

Paralysed by indecision

On how to live with this awareness

Grateful or despondent

Cautious or carefree

That everything means everything

Or nothing at all

I hold my worries inside

Silently haunted by the thought that I’m living moments

That might become my own photos

One day.