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Date a boy who takes candid pictures of you because he believes the world deserves to see how beautiful you look.

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It’s rare for me to feel pretty. When I actually like a photograph of myself, I want the world to see it.

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When we base our attraction on pictures, on bodies, on superficial or lust-filled aspects of people, we chase relationships that aren’t meaningful. We chalk up people to images. We objectify instead of learn who someone is.

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Write the date on the back of the photograph, and write what you were thinking when I took this picture of you

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This year, I will choose more preciously the moments I want to share with the world and keep the rest for us. I will be present.

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You showed me the smile that I terribly miss, the smile of a girl glowing with joy, the smile of a girl who doesn’t know how to cry, the smile that went away when you did.

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“I wake early these days, and often I lug my equipment to different parks in Queens and spin around in the woods in a blue dress and remember what it was like to be 17 and stringing up paper stars in my basement.”

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“The second he took the photo, he was shot and killed by the man in the back. One of the only times, if not the only time, someone has captured their own assassination on film.”

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And that’s where you get the great divide that we are presently experiencing. Political, moral, whatever; it all boils down to a class of people on the rise and the broken backs of the others upon which they are standing.

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A photo you look absolutely flawless in, but of course, he’s not even looking at the camera.