In the horrible, volatile war field that is dating, romance and just sex there are people who leave scars deeper than others. These people act as the yardstick we measure all future flirtations, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers and even life partners against. These people occupy strange places in our lives, because they once knew us better than anyone in the world, and for some reason or another they fell away into the land of bittersweet memories.
Last night, to my surprise, a name I had not seen in a while popped up on the bottom of my Facebook screen. A name that used to cause middle school jitters and then later caused a lot of tears. A guy who I was unhealthy attached to for longer than I care to admit. We knew everything about each other (at least, I thought we did) spent countless hours together. We were good friends until we were more than friends. Then, very quickly, we were enemies.
I’m not going to get into the specifics of what happened between us, because they are not significant (and frankly none of your business). Basically he betrayed me, belittled me and broke my heart. Classic hopeless romantic stuff – the backbone of cheesy dime novels, Sara Bareilles songs and Lifetime movies – but painful none the less.
This is a stunning photograph for many reasons. First it captures an act of romantic passion amid acts of violent passion. Second is the composition, the foreground and background are out of focus, but the police presence it obvious and ominous. Lit by the street lamps and focused in the center is the kissing couple, who appear as if they are completely ignorant to the chaos around them. Most importantly, the almost blocked subjects heightens the feeling that the viewer is catching a sneak peak of a very private moment despite the public setting. Gotta love some quality voyeurism.
