The Photograph

That photograph looks better
Lying alone on the floor,
Trapped inside its chipped wooden frame,
And topped with a sprinkling of glass.
There, it is a better representation of
Who we are.
Everything about that photograph is wrong.
Who are those smiling people?
They are certainly not like that now.
They are strangers to me,
And strangers to each other.
And that unblemished white background?
It shouldn't be white at all.
It should be stained with midnight tears,
And cut up with sharp words,
And then clouded by the silence that hangs in the air,
The aftermath of a huge mistake.

I would much rather have taken a pair of scissors
And cut those people apart from each other
And scattered them in the wind
So that it may take them far away from this place
But I can't.
So I just let the frame fall from my hands
Onto the fake laminate
And hope that, by shattering the glass,
I can give those people a chance
To breathe
As they suffocate beneath
Their smiling masks.