If the world were blind

Ark Iris

The world would love you if it was blind.

Without eyes, they would have to listen. 

They would have to listen to how you hold back your tears — something you’ve tried to perfect since you were 12 — but I know how your voice flies when you are happy, and I know how it falls when you are not. I’ve remembered the rhythm of your half-hidden sniffles, and the cadence of your cries, and the three-second pause you take when everything is about to spill.

But all the world sees is a crybaby. 

You were never a good liar.

If the world cared enough to hear, they would be graced by the song of a boy brimming with hope, even when you have faced hate for far longer. They would know how you still silently wish your father good night when the night has been anything but good, and while you remember the shrill of broken glass, all that you know is the pang of a broken heart. They would know how you would spin sorrow into something that could almost be worn.

But the next day, what they saw was a boy wearing a skirt. 

You tried to stop sewing after that. You couldn’t.

If the world took a few steps closer, they would know your whispered honesty. They would know how bright your cheers would become even in the smallest of victories, and how you offered your awfully genuine concern for those who wouldn’t even think twice about dismissing you as a bother. Most of them do. But that never stopped you from praying for them, carrying the strongest persistence in the softest voice.

Even then, their eyes see you as fake, comparing you to plastic when you were never malleable. 

You were you, even if the world never cared for you.

If heartbeats could be as loud as arguments, the world would hear how dynamic yours are. They would know how it spiked whenever I embraced you, but they would also know how you flinched, like affection was something you hadn’t gotten permission for. Yet despite it all, you offered me your sweet nothings when we went to bed — even if you were the one who needed to hear them the most. And when we were together, you would share your world with me. Your hopes, your dreams, your maybes.

But all they see are two boys standing too close to each other.

And I’m sorry.

If the world gave us more than judgmental stares, if the world could have only leaned in and listened and cared, I wouldn’t have walked faster. I wouldn’t have lied and told them that we were just friends. I wouldn’t have left you in the cathedral when I heard them talking about us. I wouldn’t have packed my belongings and left you with only heartbreak. 

I wouldn’t have stepped away when you cried, leaving you for three seconds that felt like a lifetime.

I’m sorry.

But you are an angel.

And I am only another cruel mortal who tried to clip your wings in this awful world.

But had we no eyes to see,

I would have been the world that you wished to see.