What you can’t see is what I didn’t know.
I didn’t know
about you.
How your secret would affect me,
my life,
my world.
I can see you,
  her,
  and I — newly brought to life.
Her: a new mother.
Faint evidence of sweat still present upon her face.
Glowing now,
more than ever before,
the room brightened by the joy in her smile.
Me: asleep,
  blissful,
    ignorant.
Unaware of unfolding events.
You: eyes focused on the lens.
Arms around her,
lovingly.
The enormity of the event not lost in your brain.
I can’t see the hands.
The white monstrous hands
wrapped around your throat.
Reaching into your brain,
devouring,
destroying,
degrading.
Inserting themselves into your life.
I want to help you,
to break off those white powdered hands,
to release you from their grip.
But I am incapable,
as I was just brought into this world,
and I do not know about your secret,
about you,
about the white hands.
And this battle you must fight for yourself.
You must devour them,
   destroy them,
   degrade them,
do not let them regain their grip,
for they will choke you.
I can’t see those powdered white hands,
but I know now,
that they are there,
and
they will always be there.
Waiting,
knocking at the wooden doors of your brain,
begging to be let in.
Begging for you to love the winter,
the cold,
the snow.
But here I sit,
looking at you,
    her,
    and I.
Knowing these things can not be altered.
Because I am now in my eighteenth year,
and you are now in your fifty-fifth year.
Life is different,
we are no longer in a whitewashed sterile room
looking into the lens of a camera.
This is a photograph,
capturing only what can be seen
by the naked eye — a still moment in time.
Showing you,
    her,
   and I,
  still.
Hiding from me the white hands
that haunt you,
that haunt her memory,
that haunt my life.
That haunt this moment,
a once innocent image,
stained white forever.