yearbook photos

I hadn't met my girlfriend yet in any of my high school yearbook photos. I've been studying them intently for the past few days. I still have the same smiles: the same smirk for when I know there's a camera, the same crooked smile when I don't. I've aged since then, obviously, and lost weight, but the smile is the same. You can tell a lot about someone from their smile.

I'm between two girls with perfectly composed smiles in all my yearbook photos. Every year their smile is the same. In every photograph, even when they can't see the camera. The same smile. It's plastic. It's a smile that's meant for photographs. It's guarded. These are people who go far because they know how to give people what they want, instead of give them who they are.

In mine I just look frightened. I'm not sure of what--maybe that I won't be smiling anymore soon. Or maybe I'm just surprised to be smiling? Either way, it's the same everywhere. No changes after I met my girlfriend, or when we started dating. I'm still afraid of smiling, I'm still smirking at the camera, fooling only myself.

But she's changed me. I know she has. I'm happier now. Surely that has to come through in photographs? So I keep looking for little signs. There's nothing new in my eyes. There's nothing different. It's all the same.