Through The Cemetery Backyards

All the little dirty secrets you are so desperately trying to hide from everyone’s eyes are sooner or later going to escape, and you are no one to prevent it. You may think that you don’t have to ever tell the truth, but you don’t need to speak to give yourself out completely.

I think that if I wasn’t blind, my motto would be something along the lines of “You can achieve anything if you try hard enough”. All the dreams you’ve ever had, all the perfect worlds you’ve imagined- everything is going to collapse one day if you never try. And after that, ‘till the very end of your pathetic life, you’ll constantly pity yourself: “Awh, poor me, why does bad stuff happen to good people?”. Then fate will have even more fun driving you completely and utterly insane, making you miserable, right until you finally press down on the bade hard enough to kill yourself. Only then it will be satisfied. It will make your whole life lower than shit, just adding sprinkles of happiness here and there: it will feed your hope for the better future you want so badly, making you go on for longer. But the future doesn’t get better. Fate just wants to see for how long it can bend you until you finally snap, falling into pieces. Then it will dust the floor from your ashes, vacuum them and move on to another victim. You don’t matter, that’s it. And you probably aren’t even as good as you think you are.

I had another eye surgery half a month ago. I thought I saw a light, or a flash of colour, but it was just my imagination, something from my old memory. When I realised I was still blind, I cried. I didn’t just shed a single tear, I sobbed and wailed on the cold kitchen floor as my mother held me close to her side, her hand smoothing down my hair. My fingers were covered in something sticky and I knew it was my blood, but I didn’t know where it was coming from, and I was too scared to ask.

As I was lying on the kitchen floor wanting to die more than ever before, Mom kept telling me it was okay and that one day I was going to be okay too, but it’s not true. The worst part is that we both know how big of a lie that is, but both of us are scared to admit it aloud. Fate doesn’t forgive- once the victim is chosen, it will not let go until he is crushed into dust. The dust than shall be rolled into a joint and smoked. I heard that when you’re high, you get just crazy torture ideas, and that could be helpful to fate. It’s cruel and wicked. This completely eliminates the idea of “things turning okay once you grow up”.

I sit alone on the carpeted floor in my room, wondering what’s next for me but not wanting an honest answer.
I run my fingers over the Braille text.

“...Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in the ground before they opened it…”

This book was translated into Braille only by my request- just one copy exists, and I’m the owner. It was a present for my birthday three years ago, when I, quite surprisingly, still had a bit of hope left in me. I reread it every other day, but it carries so many tragic memories that only a cemetery could beat it.

I was in love, or at least I thought I was, with the boy who gave it to me. Three days after my birthday, when I gained enough courage, I naively consulted him about my feelings. I got the reaction I wasn’t expecting; it hit me like a tidal wave, tore my little innocent heart into pieces. The guy didn’t understand. He didn’t understand what it feels like to be blind. He called me a faggot and stormed out. I’m fucking blind, what do I care about gender and looks?

“That’s a rude thing to say to a handicapped person!” you would say, but I’d disagree. It wasn’t about me being blind. I was the one who encouraged him to be open with me in the first place, treat me like he would treat others. And he kept it fair, he kept his promise.

He treated me just like he would treat anyone else, and I do not accuse him of being “not nice towards a blind person”. I accuse him of being a fucking asshole in general.

I need to give him my regards though- he did come to apologise to me several days later, but my mother wouldn’t let him speak to me no matter how many times he asked. At that time, I was thankful for it, but now that I think back to it, I kinda wish she let him see me. I’m intrigued to hear what he had to say to me. Probably some sappy apology. I’d probably pretend like the whole incident didn’t hurt me at all, and we’d be best friends again, but in the back of my mind, I know I wouldn’t be able to forget the pain.

“Living is easy with eyes closed”, John Lennon once said. Well, I’d want to see the motherfucker try to live a life with fully nonfunctional eyes, chilling in the strawberry fields which he, unfortunately, will not be able to observe. Of course living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding’s all you see, but what if the misunderstanding becomes fucking annoying and you have completely no power over it?

I remember when I just lost my sight, people said I was brave. But in what universe is this bravery? I didn’t choose to be blind; I wake up every day and live my life the way fate wants me to live it. You don’t call a man brave for having two functional eyes, right? That’s just the way he is, and blind is just the way I am.

Notes