It has an old gold frame, a year etched into it.

I remember that year, as if it were yesterday.

It has a face so memorable that it hurts.

It wasn’t the place, but rather the way,

the way we got there, slathered in dirt.

2022 - Summer camp in Oklahoma,

I’d never really had many friends, none at all.

July came by, I was prepping for school,

I was waiting for days to be shoved in the halls,

but camp came first, and suddenly I was no fool.

It has an old gold frame, that picture,

It has two faces on center stage, smiling.

They were covered mercilessly in filth,

mud and dirt and sticks and leaves.

But they looked as if roses could never wilt.

Summer Camp in 2022, me and him.

I was lost before he came, same when he left.

But this picture caught his eyes on mine,

and it made me wish I wasn’t deaf,

that I could’ve heard just what he said.

The picture is framed by a fake gold trim,

but the people in it had smiles so real.

Summer Camp in 2022, me and him.

He was the clown, I was the ruined deal,

but we both knew our story wasn’t dim.

The frame is rather small, but its story is not.

It was built into my wrecking ball of a heart,

but it wasn’t supposed to take up space.

It was supposed to be like the tree’s part,

in a play with younger kids to take their places.

The frame is gold and rather small,

but the story it tells is worth the most.

I wonder how something so miniscule

could take up so much space, like a ghost

with a presence so tangible and noisy like a mule.

(Even so, a deaf person could hear it.

…and I did hear it.)

2022 was the best year of my life,

and I can only remember it due to gold.

Fake gold, framing a photo of two.

Only one lives today, the other _dead_ cold.

Instead of me in the coffin, it was you.

And that picture and its frame?

With the fake gold, messed up etchings,

even with the dirt on our faces, all of it,

it has more worth than anything,

so much so I wonder how it’s possible.

How could something so small,

something so… simple and fraying-

How could something like that

take up so much space in my fading,

fading pulse that’s making sure

I’ll join you in the skies soon—

How could that picture frame

take up so much space in my heart?

[not really good at all, but I got a lot on my mind. And I have a French assignment where I have to transcript the lyrics of a French song in English 😭 *without a translator*]