• By Tristan Mortimer (he/him)
  • Art “Pyrotechnics” by Carlo Difiore (he/him}

A picture may last longer than a moment
Yet its tangibility is misleading.

Memories are much more
temporally palpable,

Though they do remain somewhat fleeting.

To put years of a life into a single frame,
Gorging the camera with an instant
in a swift flash,

A firework of captured experience.

When faced with that dim unknown,
The twist of the stomach that spreads
Like black ink on milk parchment,
The stress of the flesh

Stay reminded of the platitude
Not of the benign
That this too shall pass

When faced with oncoming panic,
the barreling train of the future
in front of the bright-eyed doe, unable to act
and forced to look forward as it approaches

Let a memory capture these moments
And burst like a firework, bright and fast
and if uncertainty boils
Remember that this too shall pass.