stuck polaroid

I tried to remember
to take as many photos
as possible
so I wouldn't forget
how ruined you were

But each Polaroid
revealed you well-developed,
re-freezing you
in cultural amber

I often shook you,
harder,
hoping you would blur
into a shape I could
dismiss
as an accident

When the image was warped,
you told me to just
throw it away;
so I did, and kept stacking you
frame
by
frame
so I could remember you
animated

When my house burned down,
so did you,
in a shoebox in my closet,
the only thing I saved
was a broken camera,
with broken gears
in a field with no roof