For my 17th birthday in August 

I received three disposable cameras. 

I was thrilled to use them

because I’ve admired their results

In unfinished scrapbooks

And twenty dollar silver picture frames.

A snapshot of life in the 80’s, in the 90’s,

That filled my heart with nostalgia 

for a life I never got to live,

Stolen from me by some higher power,

like fate, or timing, or destiny,

So I always wanted to go back in time,

It was more simple;

less technology, less stress, more freedom.

It was 4:30 pm, on March 11th, 2021,

Whether I liked it or not, 

and the sun was falling out of the sky,

Its golden rays soaking everything in honey

And penetrating through my car window 

as I sat in the parking lot of walgreens. 

My mother handed me two small blue packages,

Each holding memories that I had forgotten 

That I remembered, like a second brain 

that I didn’t know I had,

I opened up the packages, electrified, 

I had been waiting to see 

the results for so long,

The shiny 5 by 7 prints fell onto my lap 

And my anxious fingers 

began to thumb through, 

excitement bubbled up inside me,

Like when you open up a shaken pepsi,

and it felt like I might overflow or explode

I laughed at some pictures, “awed” at others,

but felt a content glow in my heart at all of them. 

It was only when the pictures were put away

And I was lying in my bed in the dark

that night that it hit me; now is my 80’s. 

Someday when I have kids, they’ll look 

at these disposable camera pictures from 2021 

as I did my mothers from 1980

and say “wow, what a time, I wish I lived then.” 

all anyone will ever have is the present, 

and time travel is only possible

With the creativity of an anxious mind

And with the notion that disposable 

camera photos from the 80’s

Will be any different 

than disposable camera photos from 2021.