"Tell me it isn't you in the photograph"

“Tell me it isn’t you in the photograph.”

Tell me your eyes are not the windows to a steel blue ocean river lake pool droplet of water upon my lip.

Tell me the lines around your mouth were formed by the words of a lover, or better yet, an abuser.

Tell me the shadows gathering beside the bridge of your nose do not hold stories like the company you keep beneath a highway overpass.

Tell me you never had that haircut, so it can’t be you in the photograph.

Tell me it’s your cousin instead, who always looked so much more like you than your own siblings.

Tell me you weren’t even born yet, your skin still wrinkled and thin in your mother’s belly, not wrinkled from not using enough sunscreen.

Tell me it isn’t you in the photograph, that your edges are softer, your gaze more forgiving. This is a relative from a century ago, whose exact DNA you inherited against all probability. You were not born yet.