the trouble with snapshots

Tired snapshots in a leather album,
The kind of thing your dead grandmother
Might have kept recipes in,
Opens to reveal
A thousand stories
You never wanted to hear

Memories are hard to kill
Especially the pleasant ones
They fight so hard
For a spot of consciousness
Just to be recognized
And welcomed again

Because these memories are foolish
And naïve
They don't understand why
No one wants them
When theyre filled with smiles and laughter
They don't understand that theyre already dead

They float like ghosts through haunted halls
Oblivious to peeling paint
And cracking foundations
Entirely ignorant of the pain
Tied to their ankles
And stiched into the fibres of their beings

Theyre always old
Yet so like children
Who always say the wrong thing
Honestly
And unabashed
Little mirrors reflecting their makers

Burning film smells awful
And have you ever tried to tear a polaroid?
And old home movies never surface
Until there is someone to watch them
And laugh

Memories don't die easy
They writhe and struggle
Killing slowly
With that which cant be had
That which is gone forever
except for footprints and echos
in leatherbound albums.