The Image She Took
Ishani Patel
Summer awakened her camera,
It moved in a constant spiral,
And then it found a face.
A face so beautiful.
That even her beauty could not be realised,
Through her camera’s eyes.
And in the image she took,
A flash so fleeting,
Birthed a spark in their hearts.
Something was left unsaid,
But they both knew everything the other was thinking about.
The camera: time’s thief,
Capturing their stolen moments on the street.
Cradling their time together in rolls and rolls.
Only for a moment,
Were they able to love,
And be loved by the camera.
Their world is ablaze.
And she could not find her eyes through the smoke and flames.
So darkness found her instead,
One final time.
Undertones of red,
Like the shimmer left behind by the fires,
That licked the walls surrounding her.
Her vignette wet under the deep scarlet glow,
Drowning under the water.
She doused the fire,
That familiar spark of passion,
The fire that ignited in their hearts,
And among the streets they once walked.
She drowned it all.
She hoped her image bathed in the water,
Would somehow engulf the flames.
She hung her up.
Muse, shivering in her darkroom.
Oh mind of hers, calling to memories,
Of fingers quietly intertwined,
That exciting rush of adrenaline,
Its fervour taken by a fickle fiend,
A passion left weeping in fire’s warm embrace.
Their spark but a hush in the winding colours of her image,
Her lips a curve of unsaid words.
Her spark,
A ghost found in the space between breaths.
Her beauty aglow,
Hopeful light captured by her camera.
Forever held within her eyes.
Still, alive.
Still alive.
Alive in the image she took.