blink
the world was bright,
she knew~
something
beautiful and brilliant,
that she had heard
stories of
before she even knew
what they meant
but she'd known the comfort
of the filmy black cloth
for
much
too
long.
Blind Man
There was once a man on the side of a road.
His eyes were blank and his hands were cold.
He shivered and shook as he held up a sign:
"PLEASE HELP, GOD BLESS" written in shaky hand.
Occasionally he heard the clink of a coin
or the flutter of a dollar bill.
But most of the time, he heard nothing
outside of the normal sounds of the city.
People walking and talking, too busy to care
for a poor blind man
with nothing to share.
Then one day he heard a man
who decided to stop for a chat.
The man said
"Hello, I'm Gabriel. And you are?"
The blind man was so stunned by conversation
that he forgot his real name.
"I'm the blind man," he said,
so used to his blindness
that he let it define his identity.
"Well, Blind Man," said Gabriel.
"Let me offer you a wish:
Anything you want,
it shall be yours.
You've led an honest life,
never taking, only earning.
You've gone through struggle and strife,
you deserve a reward.
So, if you want,
I can take away your blindness.
Just say the word, and you'll see."
The blind man thought
and thought some more.
He figured this man was lying.
But if he wasn't, if he was for real...
what would he wish for?
He sighed, a long, hard sound, and looked Gabriel
in the place where he thought his eyes would be.
"My only wish," the blind man said,
"Is for everyone to be as blind as me."
Blind Spot
The Uber driver looked over his shoulder.
“What do you do for work?”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m a doctor,” I said. Who cares if I’m lying? When there aren’t stakes in a conversation, in a person, there’s a freedom in letting go of yourself.
Like kleptomaniac Marie in Breaking Bad, I had become someone who needed to escape from whatever it was I was suffering from.
The Uber driver pulled out a book. “Take a look.”
On the back cover was a picture of himself. Obviously, this man wasn’t lying about himself.
The back cover explained his experiences of falling three million dollars into debt, and his slow climb out. How he did it. How others can, too.
“I’m going to be on Netflix.”
Somehow, my pretend, prestigious, fake profession seemed less impressive now.
Having made up my lie, I had been blind to the fact that perhaps lying isn’t so fun afterall, when there are people willing and ready to not exploit the innocence of others, and stand up for what is truly important.
I had been blind to the possibility that perhaps this Uber driver was someone who respected himself, didn’t need to escape, though he had clearly been suffocating.
Blindness
Every time I go to look for something, it is never there
I look under things, around things, over top of things, behind things, in front of things
but they're never there
Then someone else comes into the room and within two seconds
"Found it!"
I cannot begin to imagine how even as they question my eyesight
"Are you blind or something? How did you not see it?"
I ask myself the same thing.
Maybe I am, or maybe I'm just terrible at looking for stuff
or maybe they were messing with me
It wasn't actually there, they just said it was to make me look a fool
but no, that doesn't make sense why would they do that when they asked me to find it
Am I blind or just near-sighted?
The Sounds Of Romance (We’re all blind at first.)
When he’s young, the world is his oyster, and the tune in his head sounds something like this:
the wanderer (Dion):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCW0HviPEEY
Then she sees him, falls headlong, and catches his eye in turn. But she’s too young to play it cool...
stop! in the name of love (the supremes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGJQPkfwlAc
It’s pure magic when the internal tunes finally sync up:
When that happens it sounds something like
por una cabeza (Carlos Gardel):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaDXkKtHr3w
Then if it doesn’t work out,
He’s got the blues:
Damn right I’ve got the blues (Buddy Guy):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hjqqa5tq5k
And she will survive:
I will survive (Gloria Gaynor):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARt9HV9T0w8
But if it does work out,
If you do manage to cling to each other,
Despite the fact that you’re both tragically human,
At some point you wake up and you realize what you’ve got. You’ve had some playful laughs, some scary depth, some dull dreamy days, some grand sweeping heartache, and a whole lot of shared history.
Then it turns into a bloody brilliant waltz:
The Second Waltz (Dimitri Shostakovich):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hTvc3f83Ws
