Dear Guinevere

Dear Guinevere,

There’s a picture of you and Arthur
Standing near a body of water
Posing for a photograph
Trying to look happy

It’s somebody’s wedding
(Not yours)
And Arthur’s hand is around your waist
And he’s leaning into you
As if he’s whispering something
In your ear

And you’re looking
At the person taking the picture

Not at the camera
But at the photographer
As if you want to tell them
Something
But can’t
Because Arthur is close
He’s too close
And he won’t like
Whatever it is
You have to say

Dear Guinevere
Maybe it is your wedding after all
Although your dress
Is very casual
And your shoes
Are far too extravagant
To belong to a new bride

Your crown is slightly askew
And we can’t see your wedding ring
But that might have something to do
With the way you’re being photographed

You have your hands
Behind your back
And Arthur looks like
He could be keeping them there
But at the same time
There’s nothing threatening
About the photo
Nothing that says ‘You’re hurting me’
Or ‘Help’

You’re both trying
You’re both trying so hard
And trying is all we can see
When we look at the photo

And we admire
How hard you’re trying
And despair at what little good
It will do

Dear Guinevere
There are other photos
Photos without Arthur
Photos of just you
Photos Arthur took
And photos Arthur had taken

And in each one
You look a little different

In some you’re delighted
In some you’re reflective
In some you appear to be solving
A math problem in your head

But the ones we like the best
Are the ones taken by
The man who took the photo of you and Arthur
That day at the wedding
The wedding that might or might not have been yours

The person taking the photo
Loves you both very much
We can tell that
Based on the moment he chose to capture

A moment that could have been seen
A thousand different ways

He picked the one
Where you both appeared
Truly beautiful
And doomed
At the same time

He’s rooting for you
The man who took that photo
He wants you to succeed
To prosper
To excel

And yet, he knows you won’t
The same way we know it

He might even have something to do with it
Although that’s none of our business

Dear Guinevere
You’re looking at that man
And you’re asking him for something
But at first
We couldn’t tell
What it was

We tried to put ourselves
In his place

To stand a few feet away
From you and Arthur
And capture two people
Who captured each other
And then spent so much of their lives
Feeling just that way

Feeling trapped

We imagined seeing you two like that
Knowing we had something to do
With the invisible knots
Restricting you
To each other
And not being able to untangle you

And so instead we document
That moment
In the hopes that one day you’d see the photo
And see how you could
Untangle yourselves

And all the while, Guinevere
Your eyes say something
That sounds like—

‘Don’t look at me’

And yet how could we?
And how could the man taking the photo?
How could anybody see you in that moment
And ever

Look away?

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