Camera Roll

I wonder if someday I’ll look back on the pictures

and feel nothing. 

That the faces 

of people I could recognize 

by the sight of their back alone

would look like any other 

in a large crowd

and I wouldn’t know their names. 

Already they are fading from my memory; 

thinking to myself that if everything was still film 

or at least, not digital, 

the glossy colors would disintegrate and blur

with a timeless, vintage look

and that would be alright,  

knowing that the photographs decay with me. 

Would that be a relief? I wonder. 

There must be over three thousand 

in my iPhone’s camera roll 

that hasn’t been backed up in years

since I ran out of storage. 

What can I say? I have 

terrible memory 

and the world is so bright

so of course I must immortalize

all that I can

to prove that it existed, 

when I can no longer remember it. 

Fin.