When I told you how I’d
love to take a picture of you—
I was talking about you as
you were then, in motion,
eyes alight,
hair framed in a halo
of the dying sunlight,
looking, looking, looking—
at something far away,
something through the glass
and the engines, the asphalt
and the crawling things—
something far from
this wretched place,
something far from me.
I wished to capture you as
you were then, in a moment that
we would never return to.
But the memory, I suppose,
is permanent enough.
A slow-developed shot,
already murky,
like vintage film.
Someone else will have you
that way again, and it won’t be me—
But at least I can hold on to this.
I will have you
in my mind, if nowhere else,
just as you were and
will never be again.

– Jamie Lu