3y35

Left pupil getting bigger

Trip to the doctor I’ve seen since birth

Doctor runs every test

“…just to be sure,” she says

Glaucoma to aneurysm ruled out

A confident smile and a sigh

“Some people are just

built differently”

No reassurance

An ever-growing abyss in my left eye

Every day the same ritual:

Examine the afflicted eye

Growing millimeter by millimeter

Hour by hour

Today something new:

A glint within

A flash of light

No -

A blinking light?

That can’t be -

Watching the light flash

On and off like a recording camera

Peering into the growing aperture

Bathroom light flooding onto a hidden mechanism

Shapes sharp and engineered

Dread

Apartment door surges open

Delusion becomes reality

Two large men and my doctor enter

I begin to protest

My doctor speaks in code

Paralyzed

She approaches, speaking more phrases in that code

Confident shoulders falter

Fear

An injured animal

And its approaching hunter

Her voice commands my body

Forearm folds open

Microelectronics underneath

She places a disappointed call

“Project RK has gone nova”

A head nod and a “Will do”

One more phrase

And my world begins to spin

Limbs grow heavy

“Put it with the others”

Piled with the others

Condemned to eternal thought

If there is a next time

Please

Build me differently