By: Nouhad Elie Melki II
Photography by Dr. David Baird | 28 February 2018 |www.davidbaird.com
Here’s my smile, Black and White.
My smile was captured in
The fraction of a second,
One point five megapixels,
Seven shades of Black and White, And in seven syllables.
And my smile does not ask
Questions. Rather, it begs, “Why?”
My smile begs the question,
“What does it take to smile?”
All it took was for Doctor
David Baird to say, one time,
“Alright. Now smile, Nouhad!”
Behind that smile, I had To break free from my sorrow,
The truth that surrounds my past.
I have spent most of my life
Dark and Somber – Black and White – Without a smile to spring.
I’ve never had a smile for
Her, nor Lasting Happiness
Nor Endless Joy nor Success
Nor “I am proud of you, son.”
But is my smile supposed To be an Image of God?
And who is God anyway?
What is God supposed to mean?
Is He supposed to be Love?
What is Love supposed to mean?
If I’m an Image of God,
Am I an Image of Love?
God brought me to Anderson?
Why? To be handed a torch
For my own enlightenment?
To be enlightened, I think.
Yet, everything around me
Appears only Black and White.
So I’ve put on this smile,
Hoping for it to reflect
Off of someone else, like Her.
But no one has smiled back.
The ambitions that I have set for myself lie in my mantra, Faithfully Pursuing the Dream. Its meaning embodies my belief in a devotion to the truth while achieving success — not for myself, but for the greater good.
My passion for expressing the truth takes many forms. As an amateur photographer, I believe that our world is a frontier for the pioneering of new perspectives in capturing iconic shots that tell potent stories. Likewise, my writing delivers a voice for my photography. That brings me to my journalism, which seeks to encompass the truth and call it into action.
SLATES: AU'S LITERARY ARTS MAGAZINE 