The Weight of What Follows

When I was seven, my mother took me to the train station in Enugu. I remember the platform was a blur of rushing legs and heavy suitcases, a chaotic tide of people moving toward somewhere else. I spent the entire afternoon watching the backs of strangers as they walked away, wondering if they were leaving behind a piece of themselves or if they were simply carrying their lives forward like a heavy coat. I was small enough that the world felt like a series of departures, a constant shifting of shapes that never quite stayed long enough to be understood. I learned then that the most honest parts of a person are often the ones they show when they aren’t looking at you, when they are simply moving through the space they occupy. We spend our lives trying to face the world head-on, but perhaps we reveal more in the moments we are merely passing through. What is it that we leave behind in the air when we finally turn our backs to the crowd?

Jose Juniel Rivera-Negron has taken this beautiful image titled The Back Scene. It captures that exact feeling of watching the world move on without waiting for us to catch up. Does it make you wonder where everyone is headed?