London Eye (2016)

I want you to picture yourself in a

museum. You are staring at the art

on the wall, the very creation that

fills your life with meaning. Your

hand firmly grips the camera close

to your chest; a shared moment

of intimacy between your heartbeat

and the warmth of an LCD screen.

Then you feel another, a man with rough

hands touch your shoulder, interjecting

a motive into the frame. No pictures are allowed,

the man reminds you, but all you hear is a man’s

inability to appreciate the very thing he curates.

Your grip loosens from your camera, forcing it

to dangle in front of you like an amputated appendage.

A seed is planted. Thoughts of anarchy start

to dance in your mind’s eye, each more intense

then the last. In that fateful moment,  against

your upbringing and against all odds, you make

a decision that is exclusively yours, including

the repercussions that will shake your core.

Click.

Click, goes the camera. By taking that picture,

you have rebelled against an injustice. However,

your revolutionary act will not be remembered

in the textbooks. Instead, it will be immediately

forgotten by the man with soulless eyes as

you depart toward pastures of green and awe.

The photograph is proof you won’t soon forget.

You have forged a memory contained to an

institution outside of your own confinement.