in parentheses

If I were a painter, I would paint it in all its colorless glory, all its stillness. I would use the tiny space of my canvas and make it bigger somehow, draw the lines without boundaries, detail the faces in the abstract so only I could tell yours apart from mine- your face in a secret code that only I could read and understand. I would take the brilliant blues and majestic reds and turn them all gray and black. I’d throw them on the page and keep their true shades hidden– just another one of our secrets. Because I’d always know the color’s there. But only me. Only I get to know.

Or if only I was a writer, I could take a word and give it to him, make it brand new and only his. I would talk about his hands and recount the length of his nails, the redness of his knuckles, how much bigger his were than mine. I could leave out how good they were around the kitchen, chopping mushrooms, slicing onions, picking things off the top shelf, or how good they felt on me. Things I’d like to keep just between us.

It’s a shame I’m just a simple photographer- we give everything away. Nothing’s sacred. Nothing’s safe from prying eyes. I’d take his picture and there he would be, sitting, staring hard at me. Me, behind my camera. A small smile crept across his face, looking through the camera and straight through to me, telling everything to everyone. Or in a photo, maybe he’d be laughing, expelling the joyous atmosphere in the room with a cackle and a howl, throwing his head back, closing his eyes and me, laughing as well; you see, my hands are shaking. The picture’s blurry.