Blindness Poem by Thomas Plotz

Trying to understand my own self, here
I have a problem, Dyslexia, and Face Blindness
I'm sure others too,

But then who doesn't have something?

This is it, it's the gist,

Face Blindness

Primarily, projected for this pondering parable,

Or a form there of,
It's a real thing

I'm sure it's a collage of concepts that
Make's my sight upsetting

I'm able to see 2 dimensional things and people
Most of time, with my bad two eyes
My right worse off than the left

Change to a 3 dimensional setting,
AKA, Real world,
Then I'm blind,

I'm able to see people easier from the side or
A silhouette with slightly smoked defused glass
To cut the glare

In the grocery store
The aisles are terrifying,

The colored cans and boxes of this and that
Blends and bends my mind

 
I'm unable to find or define
A simple item

The harsh lights of
Flickering fluorescent
Makes it hard to see, for me

6000*Kelvin lights color temperature
Would be better, closer to the color of the sun,

Maybe I need to try Blue Blockers
Here and other places like our library

Which you would think would have good light

I ask them about it before
More so, years ago,

I went as far as to buy
Black square light diffuser
They absorb light, making it not as bright

At $10.00 a pop
It didn't go far

I got 10 for a test run,

Everyone who saw them
In the library agreed

It stopped the side glare, but
Still lit the room,

The library didn't have lucre loot,
To change all the lights
Nor, did I

So they took them down

One hundred dollars
Unable to return

Wasted

For years they
Sat on the floor, in the back hall,
Gathering dust

Till I came in, one day in disgust
Snatched them up and
Through them out

The custodian saw what I did
Wanted to call the police
I said, talk to the administrator first,

He said, yes I did pay for them
He said, yes they did help
No he can't call the police
For what I paid for

The custodian took them to his monochrome home,
He had lights that would fit them in his shop
I said that's fine, sure like to see them being used
With any backdrop

I saw them once, at his home
He said, it took some time getting use to
Not seeing the glare, when walking into a room,
You're telling yourself, are the lights on at all?
Without the glare, you catch yourself, with a different stare

 
T. Plotz
Blindness
26 FEB 2017