Sight, only.

I cannot hear.

I cannot taste.

I cannot smell.

I cannot feel.

I cannot think.

I can see.

I can only see.

I cannot even blink.

Sight, only.

blink!

Fool; blink, you cannot. Sight, only, for eternal time.

To blink – and desire dark – is extolled a high crime

Punishable by sight 

(sight)

sight! 

“a ‘seeing paradigm’”

They foist, but foist us to Faust! to dethrone sight as sublime.

…

I cannot hear.

The words – I see them far too near.

I used to assume that they bore noise,

But alas – the hearing aptitude sight destroys.

Once upon a time, what was termed audio

Is now, I am told, a sight-induced video.

Dangling before me like a glittering chandelier,

Words overwhelm my sight, and alas, I cannot hear.

I cannot taste.

The sweet and the savory have been erased.

Ah – to imagine an appetite watering with vigor

Resentful of the tasting past, I am made bitter.

Bitter – ha! – as if I know what that means

No food evokes taste, not even my saltiest saltines.

As sight overpowers, all other senses rot to waste,

And spoil me such that no longer can I taste.

I cannot smell.

Olfaction has since drowned in an infinite well.

I fantasize over aromas – mhmm, fresh-baked banana muffins

Their smell floats about as they are unsheathed from the ovens,

Rich nutmeg and cinnamon tickle my nose and whet my mind,

As if my taste, too, were stimulated – and my smell aromatic; unblind.

Odors, I desire, but would settle for a pungent pact from a spell

With my sight’s greatest nightmare, so that I may smell.

I cannot feel.

Touch, texture, and tremors my eyes conceal

The cool wet of the ocean, the temple’s solid sand;

As if there were sensory purpose for the hand…

Graceful fingertips, and gentle wrists too,

To feel and discover the morning glory’s mildew.

A deal with the devil I would readily seal,

How despairing am I; just so I can feel.

I cannot think.

My mind’s faculties condemned to an eternal sink.

As if from a devastating black hole, unthinking is begotten;

Free contemplation and remembrance, I have since forgotten.

I struggle to recall the joy of learning; original turns of the mind;

And now, to a thoughtful reprieve no longer am I inclined.

Omnipotent sight – not even a momentary blink!

For me, no such freedom of mind; no such freedom to think.

I can see.

My eyes have overtaken all other senses that once enlivened me.

I am rendered a corpse, to death enslaved by the infallible link

Sealing the lost ability to

hear,

taste,

smell,

feel,

and think.

What were once audios, saltines, muffins, ocean, sand, and mildew

Are now

(words)

(words)

(words)

and there is nothing I can do.

To free myself from an all-seeing sight; I plea for a key,

A vast sea, tall tree, magic tea… anything to make me unsee.

…

I wish to be hearing again. Tasting, smelling, feeling, thinking.

Enough to be sure that I am really living.

Senses

(sight)

(sight)

  overwhelmed by the infinite light;

That I cannot even see in day what I believe to be right.

For the rest of time, sight will never avail,

All other senses, then, are unable to prevail.

Overstimulated by my ceaseless sight;

Burdened,

hardened,

maddened!

I wish for eternal night.

I cannot hear. I cannot taste. I cannot smell. I cannot feel. I cannot think.

I can see.

I don’t want to see.

The pain sight befalls; I wish I could end it all with an eternal blink.

Away, 

away, 

away 

from the words of sight would I flee,

In hopes that I may collide with other senses to set me free.

Seeing

seeing

seeing

of all; thus seeing of naught

Unable to conjure a simple, free thought.

My soul possessed by a lifetime of ill,

Sight – hellish – bereaved me of free will.

Oh – to think the unthinkable, the unblinkable enabled to blink!

Our eyes – the windows to our souls – saved before they sink

Down,

down,

down

to the fiery depths of hell

Sacrificial desperation, all to be empowered by smell.

I cannot hear. I cannot taste. I cannot smell. I cannot feel. I cannot think.

I can see. 

I can see. 

I can only see.

You wish to bargain with sight? To this, I dare you, 

blink!

Prove to me you can freely hear, 

taste, 

smell, 

feel, 

and think.

Aha! Seeing, still, you are, in your puppeteered mind,

Living like a marionette, strings attached to limbs yet made blind.

By overwrought sight, our master; a devil with his malicious wink,

Oh! For salvation in darkness – even in hell. Bestow me his night-black ink!

A mortal sight ablaze with fires burning anew,

Immersed in scorching rays of light, never too few.

In quantity they burn me and corrupt my scarred eyes

The truth in the villainy of light I cannot surmise.

The whole world on fire, inflaming my mind

A dying world alive, dancing flames of every kind.

I watch the plants wither and see I reflect it too;

Into death, everything escaping from this sharp hue.

Oh, to appeal to the heaven of a darkened mind

Enlightened, rather, by cruel flames of no kind.

Clear, pure, peaceful, free, unrotted by light.

Relieved from the ashen burden of mortal sight.

To see beyond sight, of what others refuse to see,

And trust what may at first deceivingly deceive.

How I wish for an almighty freedom from the bright,

“... that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight.”*

When I close my eyes and extinguish the flames

So much more do I see that my sight cannot name.

The invisible and unseeable made clear and distinct

With the perfume of real life and mortal sight extinct.

A dark world of flourishing, and burning no more

As if in equal day and night, the era of before.

Peep–I open my eyes, and see fires burning anew!

So savage flames encircling me, and nothing I can do.

Only when I close my eyes, do I really awaken

To true reality, of which I cannot be mistaken.

Darkness prevailing with all my mind’s might

Here, alone, am I bestowed with immortal sight.

 *Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Penguin Classics, 2003, book 1, lines 54-55.

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