I wished I could keep everything I witnessed like a photograph, to forever hold this electric aliveness.

Water was liquid silver, water was gold. It was clarity—a sacred thing.

And then, with care, Justin put the second lens in, giving me my eyes. Turning to the mirror on the wall, I saw myself, unblocked by glass and wire. I felt beautiful, changed—freed from the identity of the “girl who wears glasses.

Beneath hot sun, desert roses bloomed. Under cold moon, I still refused to.

All I could think as he was speaking was that, if he touched me at all, all the miles I’d walked, the pain I’d felt, the beauty I’d drunken like milk, like good wine making me happy, the four million steps I’d taken, would all add up to nothing. They’d be stolen.