Disappearing (Into pictures)

Her pictures are delicate shades in my heart,   The lenses are my steel diary, pages bleeding ink.   But what use are captured shadows dissolved into fading ink?   Yet I prefer these lenses.   They are imperfect, like images in water.   So it’s my ritual now—looking at pictures through lenses.   My dopamine, away from the images in my heart,   Finds safety in her frozen state.   Perhaps here, she won’t get away.   The images in my heart are brutal,   Her frozen smile cackles into laughter.   I hear the sound of it, mesmerizing,   Like lullabies,   Seductive hands lulling me to sleep,   Until rogue light carries her shadow beyond my reach.   The sound of silence after disappearance,   Worse than the shutter sound of lenses   After images are taken.   It’s the worst kind of loop—   Falling in love again, With fading pictures.