re·​fram·ing, 2

I really enjoyed that one-inch picture frame exercise. I'm here to do it again.

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I've constructed a frame, this time made of an unwound paperclip - its edges are not perfectly parallel and the ends overlap, but the picture through them is clear:

A heather gray couch sits against a cream-colored wall, a lavender hue tinting the shadows from the window pane behind me. I catch the corner of a gold-framed, navy blue painting on the upper-left. Maybe it's Starry Night - one can only hope. A boy, half-Lebanese with a trim beard, sits on the couch staring brightly back at me with a wide, closed-mouth smile, head tipped back slightly and eyes squinting. It's a face that says "I've been holding this "unimpressed/lazy smile" for so long, waiting for you to take this picture, that it's turned into a real smile." So his eyes have squinted even tighter; they're hardly visible but the energy flows out like sound through a speaker. He may crack up any second now but hasn't yet. A laptop rests on his out-of-frame legs, which are probably wearing some flannel shorts in a blue & green plaid. Or maybe jeans. It's quite adorable, this face of his that asks me, "this is a video isn't it?" - this gaze that swirls with newness and familiarity, the point where you've taken road trips together and made a midnight hospital run after a bout of food poisoning, but you're still so fascinated by the way he pours his cereal or plays Aerosmith in the car. The face comes from someone who enjoys being observed, someone who knows most of who they are and invites your input on the rest. This lavender, cream, golden hour drips with honey and cinnamon, dusting the frame until it starts pilling. The pills keep developing. They bubble up like marinara in a saucepot, more and more, covering the image with pills until it sinks back into the carpet & I am left with just an unwound paperclip. Fidgeted with and dropped in passing.

"You need a witness to your life." - Scenes from a Marriage