Stories

As she sat down and spread out
the old picture album,
all the moments and kinfolks
livened up around her
with all those smiles and tears
and those hugs and giggles
those partings and unions
whirling around her
in a cloud of smoke
and faint echoes from afar.
Like how she beheld in awe
in childhood,
when the book of stories
would suddenly let out
the fairies and butterflies,
flowers and their scents,
bunnies, horses and fireflies,
unicorns and dragons,
chirping little girls and boys
running round the room.
And then in a moment
as the story ended,
they would all go back
into the book
on their assigned pages,
as though the clock had struck,
the dream had waned
and the magic had perished.
The smoke thinned
when she closed the album
and went back in
with all the people
and all the moments
and all the echoes.
In the end
we all become stories, they say.