You were beautiful.

Looking back through memories in a picture, I see you. I see things that my mind has already forgotten, happiness that was hidden under layers of confusion and pain. The joy that time dulled and all but erased. But it was captured. Before it was erased, to be lost forever, a little part of it was kept and stored away in a picture. I didn't notice it being taken, and if I did, with the joy was so overflowing all around me, I didn't need it. So it was forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind, it endured as time went on. And everything changed. The golden colors so vivid in the picture were muted, and faded and faded. The extreme happiness that shone through the picture, was all but a forgotten memory. And clouds covered the sun. And so the picture sat, shoved behind a large pile of nothingness, cobwebs, and dust, while the world that it portrayed grew faint and disappeared. Eventually, the sun came back again, but it was a different sun, it was no longer gold, but still beautiful, in its way. The happiness returned, but it was not the same. I came to like it anyway, I came to find it real, and it became who I am. I forgot you, and the golden sun, and the happiness we shared. It became like a different world, and I came to find that I didn't need that world anymore. And so it went, and so I forgot. Until now. Until, entirely by accident, I removed some of the nothingness that hid the picture. Unwittingly, I began to clear away cobwebs and dust, until I came across that picture. And then I saw you again. And then I remembered. And though the memories of what we shared have all but slipped from my mind, the vision that the picture held is not one that can be overlooked. I remembered the golden sun and the feelings of happiness, and I began to remember who you are. And I saw that you really were beautiful. When there was me, and there was you, and the smiles on our faces and the joy in our hearts scared away any trace of darkness or fear, and the love you had for me made the sun shine brighter. Your love was beautiful, and your heart was beautiful, everything about you was wonderful and happy. You were the gold and you made the colors shine brighter. As I look into the picture I see that. But I do not see everything as it was, because as I watch, you and I, those two people in the picture separate, until the space between our hearts becomes the time that has passed. And I see things as they are, not as they were. I look at the picture again, and can see the beauty there, but that beauty is not here. And you are not here. Because this is a different world, and you are not in this world. You are a shadow here, there is nothing beautiful about you. Maybe in your heart, some of the gold transcended down to this world, but we are too far away for me to see. Who you are and who you made me to be are faded away. So I will put away the picture, because I can not understand it in this world. Though I see you, my mind has already forgotten.