First Contact by Hattie Grunewald

The day the optician unframed my face
and took away my childhood:
I would no longer hide behind glass;
I would wear eyeliner and wink
at boys with smiles and piles of math textbooks.

I balanced my new life on the ball of my finger,
its translucent rim and pooled blue rainbows,
I said "This will make me pretty."
My spectacles rolled their lenses
and dozed in the bottom of my bedside drawer.

The first day I wore contact lenses,
my eyes glittered. But no one noticed,
looking right through me with their 20/20 eyes.