FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

Mostly….it was enough

I find the photograph in a box
that smells musty and of winters long finished.
There we are, balanced on the edge of becoming,
smiling as if the world was ready for us.

We thought we had discovered everything.
Love was a warm jacket passed between us,
friendship an infinite room
where no one ever had to leave.
History had not yet learned our names –

We were sure it would.

We posed without armour.
Naive, yes, but luminous with it.
Innocence that is not ignorance
but belief, unguarded.
We imagined photographs were nets,
that nothing precious could slip through

Though some did. 

Where are they now I wonder?

I study those faces,
how fiercely we carried our bodies,
how desire hovered like breath on glass,
seen only if you knew how to look.
We were young lesbian women
just as the phrase began to feel truth in our mouths.

What I miss is not the youth itself
but the way time had not yet cursed back.
The future was a blank notebook
and we wrote in it with laughter.

The photograph does not know what came next.
It cannot warn us or forgive us.
It only keeps us there,
bright, foolish, brave,
holding each other as if it would always be enough.

Lel Meleyal