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Marcus

By Luke Unger
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Marcus,

We covered the screen

With the picture you drew, of you, Woody and Buzz

To hide the ridges that

Spiked every time you laughed.

Carving mountain ranges on the monitor,

Nearly unsurmountable,

But not for you.

I saw your hands cling to tubes,

Embedded within your body  

As you traversed green peaks underneath the paper,

Harnessing your punctured heartbeat

Giggling, you lay limp, hands spread.

 

Shallow breaths chuckled from

The rip, chin to pelvis a red grimace,

Absent from your face,

That wept into your white sheets, white skin,

While your eye’s remained bone dry.

You scanned over us with one-thousand-year wisdom.

As we sat at the foot of your bed,

Pupils of pain, present and future

Asking with every joke, how?

To the reply of saline scribbles and

Custard smudged grins.

My own work is self-labelled as documentary photography, out of a lack of a better title. By carrying a camera daily, I aim to embody the spirit of the Brownie in making the means to photography ready to me at every moment, without obstruction – by doing so, I can take a photograph of anything that captures my eye and interests me enough to preserve. Any of us can do this these days, with a camera readily available in our pockets around the clock – and many of us do so without even thinking about it. Next time you take your phone out to take a photograph, whether it is of your friends or of something that caught your eye, think about how you are participating in the act of documenting your life through photography. Make prints of your favourites, display them on your walls, share them with your friends and family. Follow the tradition of those who came before you and took their own snapshots documenting their lives. Everyone is a documentary photographer today, and this is a good thing.

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