Wanjeri GakuruI woke up today and I couldn’t see,
I could, but I didn’t want to…
See, every time I blinked my right eye
a searing pain went through it,
So I didn’t want to see if the price I had to pay was so steep,
Drip drop…
Some eye drops fell on my reluctantly opened eyelids
and it felt like Chinese water torture,
on these eyes that don’t even open under water,
The foggy, hazy, waterlogged vision begged for darkness
willingly…
Played a game of Blind Man’s Bluff as I felt my way around my turf,
Doorknob, chair- thank God there are no stairs-,
corridor, empty doorway, turn right, sharp edge of bed,
Ouch!
Thought only thoughts of relief as the duvet went over my head
But the instinct of sight cannot be suppressed,
and my eyelids fought to flutter open in the darkness I had embraced,
Perhaps it was vain but regardless of the pain,
It knew it was Saturday morning
and the Beat would be showing the new video from Muthoni
or maybe T-Pain,
So I got out of bed and stood before my mirror,
Gently opened my left eye, pressed a hand on the right,
The image reflected back was either a Lisa-left-eye-Lopez or a Cyclop
But either way I would looked upon this world,
be I a thing of beauty or horror
But then I began to imagine living in a world
of sound and taste, smell and touch
but having no way to be amazed at the sight of the things
that worked these senses,
My world would be of things I could converse
but their inner secrets would be paths on which I could not traverse
I thought of little stupid things like not knowing
when there’s a stain on my shirt or spinach in my teeth,
which outfit or eye shadow didn’t fit
Having to dream of what a sunset looked like or a crescent moon,
And red, green, blue, purple, or whatever hue
would just be bumps under my finger tips
My loved one’s smile,
…my own…
would forever be a mystery
So I slowly dropped the hand over my left eye,
And silently bore the pain as I gazed up at the grey morning sky…