look closely and you'll see the moment when my heart splintered
when you shook me like rocking chair,
like rock in chair,

i want to always remember how the photo album of my life recalls nothing real,
just poses from fractions of moments



this is a true story about september -- nineteen eighty
how i'm born
bone structure
blueprint
reinforced

how a series of surgeries and highways carried me here --
first one to the end of the tunnel get's this --
this is the grand prize, blue ribbon, first place,
and i didn't do all that work for nothing

how i have carried in me, across landscapes, the weight of feeling,
how i tap my foot to the rhythm of heartache,
how we always thought we were resolving --
when the truth is this --
stop-motion only works because you cut out all the real-time motion,
it only looks right when you take all the pretty stills and re-assemble them
minus the drama,
minus the shadows,
minus the painstaking accuracy it took to construct each smiling picture



this moment is a still.

i want to always remember my first earthquake,
i want to always remember the first time i felt empty,
i want to always remember my first surgery and the bandages and how the scars have yet to heal,
i want to always remember how all my parts existed before me,
i want to always remember the first time i denied myself happiness

this moment is a still.

i need to always remember that pinocchio was never really made of wood,
that he was merely drawn to look that way,
that toys made in his image were not ever made of anything other than plastics,
let alone his perpetual desire to be a real boy -- he wasn't even a real puppet.

this moment is a picture. worth its weight in words.

i want to always remember the steel of your promise,
your upward glances when you'd swear to god,
when you'd look upward for reason,
raise your eyebrows at me -- as if,
as if i am not proof-enough of my own existence,
i am scientifically altered,
i am a grown up embryo,
i am a result, equal parts persuasion and intention, homegrown & organic

and i will forever remember how we shattered when our paths crossed --
how we spent many eternities rebuilding,
how we retrofitted our kisses with pillars
and how we danced like time-lapsed cranes
over a city of our own devices,



waiting for pictures, we thought we took, to develop into memories
we thought we'd cherish.

12/02/2008

Author's Note: i want to always remember not one single moment, but rather the collective of who we were, not just visually, but in the weight of our feeling -- & knowing -- that this was worth it.

Posted on 12/02/2008
Copyright © 2025 Frankie Sanchez