the photos I didn't take

We wouldn't dare take photos of the worst places.

The window ledge I leaned against when I denied you the pleasure of a forced apology.

The table that propped up a good many raw elbows as she leaned in, locked eyes with mine and told me she would never speak to him (never forgive him) as long as she lives. 

The couch we sat on when he compared me to a disloyal dog.

The way the light made a calculating slanted rectangle on the carpet as you explained, one last time, you were sorry, all the while knowing it was too little too late.

The view of the grand canyon from 30,000 feet and forces you to admit you are moving, as fast as you can, toward your life without her and the chasm below is a crack in the sidewalk compared to the one in your heart.

It would be a really upsetting slideshow.

So I don't take the photos of these places.

What I need you to see isn't in the picture anyway; it's in your heart, in your memory, in the space between us as the story unfolds.

I don't need photos; I need friends who listen as my words slowly paint the picture.

Here is where it gets good:

There are things afforded me that are not accessible to other minority women.

and one of them is this: a room full of educated white men (with plenty of other pressing obligations). and as if that isn't enough, they are listening, really listening. To me.

Not just shuffling a deck of photos but sitting down around the table, putting themselves in my place: in the seats where I sat as I lost my spiritual foothold, lost my self.

One of them climbed up in the pulpit and, at my request, crouched down a bit, to understand what it is like to be me in a box not unlike an upended coffin with a microphone for the dead.

Another one stood near the baptismal font and looked around slowly, "I want to be able to imagine her here," he said, maybe because it is hard to imagine someone with a nose ring and tattoos glowing under the red light of stained glass. I don't forget that I have physical characteristics of my womanhood that include markers of the time I have spent embedded in cultures that permanently alter my skin, poke holes in me, leave scars and some marks I have chosen. I don't forget that it can be a shock to see me approach the altar which is as much to say I don't forget to pray for those who feel as though I am creating a spectacle. 

I suspect, though, that this man in particular wants to imagine the kinds of glory and gore that I bring to the space without need, without malicious intent but simply because I am a woman and I am created to bring forth life-quite a messy business.

Is that what he saw? What he imagined?

Even though the superabundance of photographs is more real now than ever, there are pictures we refuse to take. There are images that create a blur on the lenses. Maybe we don't want them anyway. Maybe we don't need them. Tears render photographs useless.
There are moments I wish I could forget. I want to take the hands of the ghost of me and hold her palms to block my view when they replay in my mind's eye.

And then there are moments I wish I could go back to but no photograph will take me there.

So I have decided it is a good thing
there is a story and a song:
(just a word and a sound, really)
There is a line on my skin that you can trace with your finger tip
and the loose thread of my frayed soul that I would offer you
knowing that to pull it would unravel the whole.
There are feelings hidden leagues beneath rising to surface...
You know, all the stuff you see when your heart is brave enough to turn toward the sadness you cannot see with your eyes.