Ten Second Snaps

by lei

you poured your fears
in ten second pictures
laid them on my lap
inside my mouth
stitched a story of hurt
that shamed every complaint
I'd ever thought to mumble
onto the inside of my cheek
and every piece I swallow
reads the memory stored
in sloppy red digital marker

of how your eyes saw more
pain than any twice your age
could've managed to stomach

of how your shoulders slump
lower than mine
and maybe that's why you told me to stand up straight

of how his disappointment
looms above your knitted brows
and shadows every clever joke
and digs creases of worry into your thoughts
deeper than the ones I carve into my forehead

but this is not about superlatives
this is not about ers and thans and mores
or you versus a world that doesn't get it
doesn't care

this is about how I held every ten second fear
you sent across a desert at 2 a.m.
each entirety in my right forefinger
but the fear and pain and hurt didn't feel
foreign or shock or hurt
it felt right at home
felt like realizing the child you are in my eyes
had always forced its rent on my heart
and grew up in the crevices, cowering
but always whispering what pain crept, raging behind your smile
to my clogged, fearful ears
so when you snapped
every ten second fear
seemed to stream from your half-caught face
and my piled-up half-dismissed worries
simultaneously.

and my body calls out in the night
just to be crushed in your heavy arms
one more time
even silently the letters formed by your thoughts
of what your mouth would say if it had the choice
to be heard by my wide-open ears
brings a smile to my heart
even when the words you would say
would say nothing at all
it's just nice to know they're there.

this is in part a story of admiration
this is in part a hope that I won't lose you
this is in part the only way for me to cling
for me to remember
the way the hurt
the way the fear
the way the truth
slipped out so seamlessly
in one of those trivial apps
that every parent fears will be the undoing of society
and I just fear will be the early onset of my Alzheimer's

mostly I just want to remember your smile
the one that curls the lids of your eyes
past Asia (just ever so slightly)
and reverts your manhood
back to the childhood where it belongs

mostly I just want to remember your stubbly black hair
as it smashes itself into my shoulder
making home for your head out of my weak flailing arm
that won't ever complain

mostly I just want to remember your heavy heavy hand
decorated by oddly baby-soft skin
resting on my head
flicking through strands of my ever-straight hair
or slipped inside the coarse, smelly rubber
aimed right for my nose

again and again and again

and every time that red-filled square pops up
your favorite color
I try to pin what I want to remember most
squashed between the 9ish inch screen
and my tired right forefinger
and hold on for as long as I can
but it's always gone within ten seconds
or less