{"id":372,"date":"2025-11-13T23:30:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T23:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=372"},"modified":"2025-11-15T16:06:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:06:03","slug":"the-battery-comes-inside-the-film-isnt-that-neat","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/poetry\/the-battery-comes-inside-the-film-isnt-that-neat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battery Comes Inside the Film, Isn’t that Neat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bradlee Thomas<\/span><\/p>\n

Take a Polaroid camera out<\/span><\/p>\n

because I want to have tangible evidence<\/span><\/p>\n

and watch as the motors roll it out<\/span><\/p>\n

and then I\u2019ll take it from underneath the shade slip<\/span><\/p>\n

and promptly place it in my back pocket.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want an instant photo<\/span><\/p>\n

not in an attempt<\/span><\/p>\n

to gain back lacked time.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want an instant photo<\/span><\/p>\n

because I want a chemical reaction<\/span><\/p>\n

outside of my body<\/span><\/p>\n

or a lithium-ion battery<\/span><\/p>\n

that will die in 3 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The most tangible thing that it will ever do<\/span><\/p>\n

is push your touchscreen from its chassis<\/span><\/p>\n

which is kind of interesting<\/span><\/p>\n

until you remember it\u2019s a fire hazard.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead of a balloon battery,<\/span><\/p>\n

I really want to buy a special case<\/span><\/p>\n

and want it slip into its grooves<\/span><\/p>\n

before I close it from the bottom up.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want a Polaroid<\/span><\/p>\n

because I only have 8 shots a pop<\/span><\/p>\n

and when the flash triggers<\/span><\/p>\n

and the film is blasted<\/span><\/p>\n

with this map of depth<\/span><\/p>\n

to be taken one dimensional plane lower<\/span><\/p>\n

boarded in white<\/span><\/p>\n

everything becomes perfect<\/span><\/p>\n

because none of it can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe we could pool our money<\/span><\/p>\n

to buy a tripod?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I thought that we could screw it stable on top<\/span><\/p>\n

and we could use our front-facing camera<\/span><\/p>\n

to look through the viewfinder<\/span><\/p>\n

and frame ourselves the best we can.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It seems a little bleak,<\/span><\/p>\n

but I\u2019ve always liked to work with what I\u2019ve got.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I want the chemicals to catch<\/span><\/p>\n

the pink of my cheeks<\/span><\/p>\n

while we thank the new cameras<\/span><\/p>\n

for adding timers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The first 3 flashes are me running back to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 4th flash is when I settle into your fingers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 5th flash, you put your hand in my back pocket.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 6th flash, I think about the price of this shoot.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 7th is when I think about how there\u2019s easier film to work with.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the 8th, I think about how lovely it is<\/span><\/p>\n

to have a 3.1 in x 3.1 in piece of us<\/span><\/p>\n

and then remember<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have to switch my film pack out<\/span><\/p>\n

to get the 9th shot,<\/span><\/p>\n

but there\u2019s still 1 flash left<\/span><\/p>\n

so that\u2019s for a little later.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 10th flash freezes in time<\/span><\/p>\n

the moment when I realized<\/span><\/p>\n

what this is all about.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

With your hand still in my pocket,<\/span><\/p>\n

there will now be 2 chemical reactions<\/span><\/p>\n

instead of just the one exposure.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nBradlee Thomas Take a Polaroid camera out because I want to have tangible evidence and watch as the motors roll…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “The Battery Comes Inside the Film, Isn’t that Neat?”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"parent":322,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-372","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/372\/revisions\/375"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}