that’s what you wrote in my birthday card, october 7th 2021. on june 2nd 2022, you told me you wouldn’t be in my life forever. you said it like it was supposed to reassure me. how could we fall apart so soon? how’d you stop giving a shit so easily? today i thought about the small collection of photos i have of you, the few i took on my first film camera. realized that, with each moment i captured you in, there’s one of me to go along with it. you were always so eager to take the camera from me and waste an exposure on my unsuspecting face. it’s something i never let anybody else do. but that was the thing about our friendship, wasn’t it? i saw you, you saw me. we both wanted to remember each other. nobody’s ever wanted me like that. now you’re gone and there’s nobody left to keep me real.