If life resided in darkness, eyes disappeared into
caves where feelings navigate the world
amongst dangers of the sea,
who would be  
me?

If skies were never blue, only void of color and light,
causing fear in a vast unknown universe,
where would flowers
grow?

If bumps in the night, the ever present night,
were all that could be seen for miles of highway,
what road would we
take?

If life mirrored that of a blind cavefish,
born with vision lost to age and a film of
skin, a cataract of sorts,
how would we
see?

If age dissipated vision, unable to differentiate
black or white, left or right, male or female,
rich or poor, young or old, half or whole,
when would discrimination
vanish?

If life had no pigment, simply blank void where
reliance on touch, sound,
emotion guided every step,
could we escape larger prey for hundreds of thousands of
years?

If we escaped our fears, learned to love blindness,
to embrace what lives in the dark, to lie side by side,
skin to skin, smile to smile,
could we not better survive, like an ancient blind
fish?

–Victoria Emmons, 2017