Family Photo

I opened one of the albums today,

and I sat in awe of the sight I saw.

It was a family picture,

the one before my brother.

There was a face in the center I could not recognize;

but two familiar smiles plastered beside it.

There were dark folds under their eyes;

however, their smiles were ever bright, almost glittering.

The little girl in the picture had

them wrapped around her little finger.

Those two people I still have had on both my arms.

Regardless, if you ever saw them now-

I fear you would fail to recognize them.

Their hair has fallen, streaks of white replacing them.

Their smile no longer touches their eyes.

It blends into a map of wrinkles.

Their eyes feel like the debris of a fallen star.

Their shoulders drooped as though carrying the weight of an entire planet on them.

Their forehead scrunched in anticipation and worry

of the future and the path, destiny holds.

Yet every time we click a family photo;

another addition to the various others before,

A similar shine hides in their grin,

and a little pride peeks through their eyes.

Their grip on my arms tightens as though

I was slipping through their grasp.

There is sadness hinting from their tightened jaw,

but the no longer furrowing forehead speaks gratitude.

Their eyebrows relax with satisfaction,

and lost in the moment, it strikes me-

It is this very instant I will look back to one day.

Unable to recognize the face in the middle;

With knowing smiles on either side that make the world complete,

compressed into a single sheet of paper.

And with that thought running on my mind,

I cherish the moment more deeply than I was a second ago.