When the Lens Shattered the Eye Took Over

When the Lens Shattered the Eye Took Over

When the lens shattered,
The eye took over,
No longer hidden behind glass,
No longer looking through a frame.

He had spent his whole life
Looking through the camera,
Capturing moments,
Freezing people in time.

He trusted the lens,
Trusted what it showed him,
A smile meant happiness,
A tear meant sadness,
Or so he thought.

Then one afternoon,
The lens shattered on the ground,
And suddenly the world looked different,
Raw, unedited, and real.

He looked at her without the camera,
And saw what photographs had missed,
The tiredness behind her smile,
The sadness she had hidden so well.

He looked at the people around him,
And noticed things he’d never seen,
The nervous hands,
The distant eyes,
The smiles that never reached the heart.

The camera had shown him faces,
But his eyes showed him people.

He realised then,
A photograph can freeze a moment,
But it cannot freeze a feeling,
It cannot hear a silence,
And it cannot understand a heart.

He picked up the broken lens,
Pieces scattered beneath his feet,
And for the first time in years,
He didn’t reach for another camera.

He simply stood there,
And looked.

Really looked.

The world wasn’t perfect,
The people weren’t perfect,
And neither was he.

Somehow it all seemed more beautiful,
Because there was no frame around it,
No flash,
No filter,
No perfect pose.

When the lens shattered,
The eye took over,
And he finally understood
That sometimes you have to stop photographing life,
To actually see it.