My Cardboard Balcony

I Am Ugly, And You Are Blind by Belinda Roddie You grip the white stick like an extra hand. I guide you to your favorite corner, where your favorite books sit in their solitary stack. You love the smell and the crinkling sound the pages make. The doctors say your eyesight might, just might, return in six months' time. I am happy that all the colors and textures will return to you - the sheen of fur on a fluffy dog, the brightness of ketchup on a mess of fries. But I am afraid of how your eyes will twitch when they land on my rather homely physique and expression. For now, I read to you, knowing all too well that, even when you can read without your fingers, you'll want me to do this every night, when we have our own room in our own apartment, where we can count the stars together until we get too tired to think.

No one local seemed to recognize me these days, but maybe that was a good thing. After all, I had a beard now - a big one, thick and bushy with little curls at the end. I loved that beard. I'd spent over an hour trimming it every morning before pulling on my favorite blue blazer and strolling outside with a little dance in each step. Still, when I walked into the drugstore that I used to loiter in back when I was a kid, I saw someone's eyes settle on me before she spoke.