This Photo 15 Years Ago

This Photo 15 Years Ago
by Gabe Redel


I remember seeing this photograph
many years ago.
It had a lot more to it
back then.
The person in this photograph, his clothes
are not the same.
His look was much different than the way it appears today.

His hair was wet
with moose.
His shirt flared with color.
The shirt almost had a 50s look to it,
but the shot was taken in the 90s.

On his neck
was a chain.
It was sterling silver
to match the chrome on the hotrod
he stood in front of.

When I looked at this photo
15 years ago,
yes,
it was much different than it is today.

I think I know what’s missing.
I believe I see what matters.
It isn’t the hair
that he no longer keeps slicked back.
It isn’t the stylish clothes
or the flashy metal he has around his neck.

It is what is behind that hair and those clothes.
When I looked at it back then
I knew why those things were there.
I felt them
and I could remember every thought
and every passion
behind them.

The shirt was because he knew sadness.
The hair was his energy
and enthusiasm for the future.
The chain was what masked
all the love he knew he needed
but did not know how to find.
The chrome was for the days
that he had spent praying
that this day was not the only one he would ever see.