sometimes the light is too bright

It's good to be alone. You stand here in your room.

There's a window. It is open. The curtains are drawn apart. Light pours in from outside. Birds are singing.

You're standing by the window. Looking at a photograph that you hold in your hands. The light is good for you, they say.

It is a photograph of your parents on a beach, somewhere in time. Your mother is holding an umbrella, smiling. Your father is standing a metre or more from her, in full light, holding a cigarette to his mouth. He isn't smiling. He is squinting, trying to look at the photographer in the bright light.

In the bright light.

Their image is blurry but you can map out every single detail

of their faces.

You used to go up so close to them and loved looking into one of their eyes to catch your own reflection in it.

You liked that you're a a part of them, contained in that lil' spherical room.

You stopped doing this when you grew older. You felt embarrassed by the closeness.

And the older you grew, the further you kept away from them.

From all the people that you've once held so close to you,

that you've tried so hard to see yourself in each one of them.

It is good to be alone. You stand here, in your room.
Looking at a photograph that you hold in your hands.

Light pours in from outside the window.

Lately, you're having problems with your vision. Things go out of focus when you bring them too close to your eyes.

Your draw the curtains shut.
It is all too much, too close, too bright.