Never look at it again

This poem was inspired by my old photos ...

I left my homeland in 1982 and bought myself a very cheap camera (since I was a poor student those days) to capture my new life for sharing with my family. These are the worst quality photos of my collection, but reliving those carefree student days make them worth keeping.

As I started working, I upgraded to a pentax with the date on the photo. That was new technology those days because prior to that we used to write the date and event on the back of photos!

I then moved on to a canon EOS 500, which was highly recommended to me by my photographer friend. I even had lessons on how to take photos. It was all a great experience. The downside to all this was I needed space to store these photos and albums.

Finally I moved into the digital world of my Nikon D90 and I only print those pictures that I want to frame. Now storing space for photos is all about enough memory on the Mac and a good back-up disk. What do I do with my hundreds of other photos?

Well I have a few drawers that still carry these pictures and hence the memories of my life from 1982 to around 2000. I also have diaries and journals from when I was 11 years old. Occasionally I take a big trip down memory land and go through these pictures and my diaries and relive my past. I know we should live in the present and the past is gone and there is nothing we can do about the past, but I find that it is still nice to acknowledge people in our lives, who were very important at one stage.

In the end we are all a product of all our experiences, both happy and sad.

So this session of going through old memories is really to thank everyone in the past for everything they have given me and the part they played in my life.

The conclusion at the end of each such session is that some of these memories can be fantastic to relive while others can still be painful and the past is better left where it belongs. Hence, I very carefully put all these photos and diaries away but I know I will never throw them away and however painful it may be, I will revisit them again.

They are all a part of who I am now.

Carefully put it to one side

Never look at it again

Let it lie around gathering dust

You have to hang on to it

Because one day

You’ll go back to it

You’ll open it

And the old wounds

Each photograph will bring with it

Beautiful memories

Followed by bitterness that will linger

The glint in those big blue eyes

That you fell in love with

Will be back to taunt you

You will wonder if you should have left

Then you will remember the trauma

The cruelty

The inevitable end

As the blue eyes lose their spark

You will detect a superficial smile

You will know you did the right thing

You will carefully put it to one side

Never look at it again.