When I close my eyes

And lift my hands

To the curve of my cheek

            Tip of my nose

             Jut of my chin

My eyelashes overflow

With the recognition of what

I cannot see.

If my hands can behold beauty

Then why does it elude my eyes?

This is me thisis me thisisme

I repeat it like a dying prayer

Holding my heaving chest

Close to myself.

If I were to disappear tomorrow

My touch would be lost

Yet my sight

Would never have been found.

Behind my eyes

Broken telephone lines

Claire McFadden is a humor writer and occasional poet based in Philadelphia. She enjoys reading, writing, and talking to people except while she's reading or writing

Authors Notes: Telephone Lines emerged from a lonely moment sitting on my bedroom floor with my face in my hands. The heaviness of my thoughts was lifted by the pull of my fingers, as the clarity of their touch was akin to seeing for the first time. That beauty-- I mused-- has been there my entire life, yet until that moment I'd never held it in my hands. Whatever it was, it ran through my fingers and down the spine of my soul like silken water.