I stare into the eyes—your eyes. The all too familiar silver blue looks back at me giving me those memorable chills. You always gave me those shivers; your eyes always seemed to look right into me as if they were reading the book of my soul; like they knew things about me I didn’t even know myself. My eyes travel to your frozen-in-time smile, the smile that could turn me into the knees-weak cliché of a girl. Warmth radiates through my blood, sending an affectionate feeling into my stomach. It’s that feeling—that “you” feeling, that I haven’t felt in so long. Too long. I grip the photograph searching as if there’s a hidden meaning underneath the surface, and I just need to unearth it. And suddenly, there I am. I’m right back there with you. With those pallid smiles and the chiming bells of our tinkling laughter. Vivid camera flashes contrast against the black backdrop of the nighttime sky. Surreptitious winks and the embrace of hands—our hands—that fit into each other like two halves of a whole. That night, I truly believed we were a part of each other, incomplete until together. I suppose it was a childish belief, that conviction that ricocheted in my mind, that notion of soul mates. But, I’m not so naïve anymore. I tear myself away from the memory. My friends always make fun of me for my penchant to reminisce. Really, it’s a habit that’s just going to lead to lead me back downhill. Back to the rock bottom—to you. God appears to have embedded nostalgia in my bones, and I chose to cherish a boy named Disaster. And I learned the hard way that Disaster leads to chaos. Pandemonium, disarray and heartbreak. Disaster shouldn’t be treasured; it shouldn’t be given a value of any sort. Instead, it should be brushed away like dust in the wind; it should be ignored and forgotten. But, I didn’t ignore it. I loved Disaster. I “loved with a love that was more than love”, and I was burned. Love beat me down.

I close my eyes, and set aside the picture, but I can see it in my mind. Long ago I had memorized every detail and every pixel. I’m stuck. I’m sinking into the quicksand of the past and the future seems to turn me away. The future looks as illusive as a moonbeam in my hand, sliding through my fingers. It is only a photograph I remind myself. Yes, it’s only a picture and will always be a picture. It will never be you, or change things that have been. It will never take me back to that state of child like love, trust and hope I had that night, nor will it chisel away this cynicism encasing my heart, gained through this “experience”. So, I burn the picture, burn the memory. And Like the Phoenix I shall rise from the ashes of the forgotten. I shall be reborn from the past. I shall move on.