When I was in the psych hospital at 15—anorexic, depressed about blindness, in reality just an ordinary adolescent—I had a room mate. He was likely no older than I am now but I thought he was an old man. He spoke very little English. He was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. Anyway, while I was busy starving myself to death he lay in bed and moaned and muttered to himself. Every now and then he’d totter my way, lift his gown, and say: “Look at my scar!”
The depth of his sadness was impossible to absorb. That was my first lesson in sublime unending sorrow.
As I watch the horrors unfolding on our nation’s border with Mexico I again feel the palpable call of unendurable sorrow.
Refugees are crying: “look at our scars.”
Trump, our junk mail president smirks.
Scars are for losers.
**
Ode to My Right Eye
In pain
More than half
The day
Cold
As a starling
But wise
For that
Knowing
Fostered
Words
Of light
My drowner
Blind sister
Who can’t
Be consoled.
**
Consolation is tailor made for aphorisms. I have none. Every single human is scarred.
**
To my 15 year old self:
Scars are a matter of winning.
Planet of the Blind 