2-D

I have this visceral reaction whenever I see a picture of you pop up in my social media out of nowhere. It’s always welcome. Seeing your face makes me smile. I know you’re alive, you’re well, and embarking on some adventure whether it’s just a stroll in the city or going out of town. I get a snapshot of a moment in your life. Even if we aren’t in the same time zone, it still makes me feel like I’m apart of your life in some way, even as a weird outsider peeking in. Sometimes it makes me feel like a soldier overseas, looking longingly at a shitty polaroid of their sweetheart back home.

While I welcome the unexpected photo, it also makes me hate it when I see a photo of you pop up in my feed. I love looking at your face, but I hate the fact these days I can only admire it in a two dimensional form. It’s a drastic change when at one point I could look at it in person, three feet away from me. It’s just another painful reminder of when you left, how long you have been gone for, and that at one point you were here. And now you’re not.

I don’t want to see you in two dimensional form when I had the real thing before me. A photo is never as good as the real thing. It should never be better than the real thing.