Hello Stranger

I wake up in the morning and do not feel like myself.
 My body aches in unfamiliar ways.
 The joints in my hands crack,
 my right thumb somehow feels unnerved.
 The muscles in my back and neck haven’t
 been the same since experiencing multiple panic attacks.

 I look in the mirror and do not recognize myself. 
 My cheeks are puffy, resembling a chipmunk,
 reminding me of when I had my jaw surgery.
 My eyes are strange, for my top lids are pulled back,
 giving me an unwanted stare I don’t realize I have.
 The puffy pockets underneath my eyes indicate
 swelling that somewhat subsides by the time I say goodnight.

 I look out onto the day and everything has changed.
 My vision has been on the decline 
 for the last two months and has suddenly
 taken a nose dive into the great unknown.
 I can’t see much beyond twelve feet,
 it’s like looking into a fish bowl,
 everything is fuzzy or blurry or double. 

 I see double if I look up and tilt my chin down.
 My reality shifts into two, pulling apart from one
 another like something is breaking from being 
 overstretched, people often look like their souls
 are leaping out of their bodies like fading ghosts.
 This has been occurring since October, it seems like
 a lifetime ago and yet it’s still jarring every time
 I watch something transform into perspectives
 no one else can see. People often have four
 eyes, which is always the most alarming.

 I haven’t felt like myself in a long while. 
 This temporary normal that’s constantly shifting
 will never feel normal. I woke one morning
 and everything had changed without a warning.
 I’m still process everything that has happened,
 it’s overwhelming and terrifying to have no
 control over what is going on with your own body.

 I just want to see again. More than anything,
 I want to have my vision back. 
 I want to be able to see things far away
 without fuzziness or double preventing me
 from appreciating the beauty around me.
 I want to walk around without feeling
 my depth perception being off.
 I want to be less sensitive to bright lights.
 I want to look up with my eyes 
 instead of craning my poor neck. 
 I want to not feel my eyes focusing.
 I want to no longer feel eye strain.
 I want to no longer feel like my eyes are buzzing.

 I didn’t realize how much I took my eyes
 for granted until things unexpectedly shifted.
 Though my viewpoint tends to focus on
 the negative since they’re more overwhelming,
 there are a few shining spots in all this chaos.
 My eyes are not budging out of their sockets.
 Though my eyes are sitting in different places,
 it can go unnoticed if you don’t know it.
 They may look a little different and certainly I can tell,
 it’s not my biggest problem by any means.

 I have a prism on one of my lens that corrects
 the double vision when I look forward.
 I don’t know what I would do without it. 
 The support I have from my family is unconditional,
 they continue to help me through this process
 as we figure out the best avenue to take 
 to relieve the discomfort so I can move forward.