Brown Eyes (Revisited)

When I was eight-years-old, I stared into the mirror and captured the image of my face. I looked at my lips and took note of their fullness. I looked at my nose and realized how much I really didn’t like it. It was an okay nose, but I would have picked another one from God’s inventory. I then zoned in on my cheeks. Full, but not too fat… Yep, I had a couple of my daddy’s dimples. I wished that I could somehow poke a couple more dips in my cheeks.

“Not too bad.” I shamelessly thought. I had some pretty good looking features carved into my honey brown skin. Not perfect… But I decided that I was indeed a good looking child.

I continued to stare into the face of a girl that I was becoming more familiar with as each second leaped into the past. Next, I caught a glimpse of my long, long eyelashes. I admired their beauty and reach. Those lashes extended above the image that I would zone in next, my eyes. I looked into the intense, yet innocent, brown eyes of a girl, who was unaware of the dreadful days to come. I studied the brown. It was so rich, pure, and honest. A true brown… Light enough to see the brown. Dark enough to be called brown. But in that brown sea, pain, sickness, and death stirred beneath the surface. I didn’t know it yet, but those brown eyes were the deep brown pits of despair. The brown would unleash the fury that hides behind them and life would change. The brown would fade, and the girl’s image in the mirror of herself would fade with it.

Now, the image of the brown eyes in the mirror is a memory, just as the girl’s brown eyes. But the sorrow, pain, and havoc are the reality. When I look in the mirror, I see nothing. I imagine brown eyes that are not there. But they are there. Well, at least one of them is there. And the one that I decided to let stick around is trying to pretend to be something other than brown. The remaining eye is now turning gray.

I always thought gray eyes were cool. My daddy’s gray eyes are the most beautiful that I’ve seen. But who wants to walk around with one brown eye and another eye that decides to switch it up on you and fade to gray. That is not the look I am trying to rock.

Why would my eyes betray the brown anyway? I guess they don’t know that brown is beautiful. Well, my eyes betraying the brown are the least of the backstabbing that my eyes could have done. I put blindness on the top of the list of ultimate betrayals.