Silver Eyes

By Sierra J. Williams

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This piece was selected as an Honorable Mention in the First Chapters Contest, hosted in partnership with Penguin Random House and Electric Lit.

Dedicated to [….], an Aquarius.

Intro:

CIEL: AQUARIUS
He was eternally boyish
And triumphantly youthful

In a haze colored baby blue
He was as wondrous as the expanse
of the sky
And as brilliant as the stars
And fireworks on the 4th of July

Beautiful,
and ironically blond
His hair against the clouds
resembled the burning,
sterling sun

With his lightsome demeanor and mein
As bright as the moon
and light as air
As fresh as a cast of serein
on a dew filled morning
Baby’s breath and angel dust he wore,
all adorning

He was a wildflower
A four-leaf clover
on a butterfly day
He left all enchanted
and all adoring
He was a bouquet of brazen beauty
and charm
Wallowing in callow bliss

Ciel he must of fell from,
and Aquarius he is


Part 1: Blind

Those days. The world seemed wide, and every day felt long. I felt impeccably small and still incredibly vast, walking the tightrope of naivety and potential—the line of adolescence… In the presence of all that was mundane, vain, and endless, in the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind, tell me why it was your silver eyes that pierced through the veil of my futile disguise?

We met long before you ever knew my name, but unforgettably, I remember yours. It wasn’t until two years later that the puzzle pieces fell into place. Why did I remember you? Was it a dream? A glimpse of destiny? No. I couldn’t remember seeing your face or if it was a memory of some past-life imagination. Maybe this truly is a figment of my imagination…

I remember it was a weekday in February or January of 2016. The sky was the definition of gloom, sometime in the dead of winter, as I drove into Brooklyn hours before noon. Driving into Brooklyn in the morning has always left me unnerved, but I pacified myself with handheld games as I bided my time and arrived at the school: I.S. 289, Mark Twain. This is the first day we met.

Two years later, I realized the origin of this familiar unfamiliarity traced back to that “fateful” day. All I needed to hear was a distant conversation; maybe I heard your voice say it, or maybe it was through someone else, but at that moment my mind circled backward. Photography. What started it all was photography. Like a video camera, I can see flashes of this 7-year-long tape, rewinding to this singular moment.

We sat in the same room, in alphabetical order, as she called off the names. Nothing but blurred faces looked back at me. I was so tired and so tired of being tested. Call me judgmental, but as I sat there sharpening my pencils in the usual 5th-grade fashion, I couldn’t help but judge those ahead of me; the privileges of being a broken wallflower. You sat the row over, or maybe two rows over, to the left of mine. You were probably three seats in front of me, maybe 8 feet away. In a few seats ahead of me, in line with you, I remember you laughing with someone I now believe to be the twin of a girl we know all too well, or maybe he sat across the room and waved? I can’t remember.

Even as I write this, the memory of that day distorts a bit. Perhaps I’m delusional. Take it all as fiction—nothing is resolute, but it all feels so true. All I remember vividly is that there were two blonde boys. The test administrator said your name, first and last. Why did I laugh? I most likely scoffed in my head, “——, that’s your last name? What kind of name is that?”

I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say it now, but maybe the judgmental attitude I quietly exuded—even more so back then—is the only reason I remember you in the first place. One blonde boy, on one hazy day in Brooklyn, changed my outlook on life ever since… so much more than he’ll ever know.

On the first day of middle school and at the orientation, I didn’t notice you at all. After walking through TJ Maxx, my friend gushed about a tall boy I later trusted because he always sought out my justice. Did we even talk that first year? At all? Never on my radar but always there—some things inevitably get overlooked… Either way, you were always at my table, in one class or another.

Whether it was history class when I couldn’t help but stare and blame it on your hair, which was a mess, so you wouldn’t guess I was into you. Or next to me in math, where we sat in silence unless Jess was there, but my cheeks would flush and my body would heat up to the point where I couldn’t focus, and I looked at you from the corner of my eye. Or when you sat across in science and started to sing Happier to me out of the blue, saying, “Sierra, this one’s for you.” I just looked at you crazily until you stopped, but deep down, I was elated.

Highschool. There you are. 7th period English class, where you and I sat in the back and I had to feign that I was cool and relaxed, but your gaze instantly had me in a cold sweat…

End of part one: blind.


Interlude:
INTO EACH OTHER’S EYES:

SILVER EYES
Silver eyes
Silver, sharp, brilliant,
and filled with the light of a full moon
I swore I could see the constellations—
No
the galaxy
the whole universe
full of possibilities
Within them
Within you
against the backdrop of the limitless expanse of your mind
The color of nothingness
and everything all at once
I see

COLORBLIND
Color me blind
in your infinite hues
of blue
Color me in sadness
your withdrawn eyes
do
Color me from outside the lines
In due time
I will let you into
mine

UNSEEING
You used to be the only person I knew.
I imagined we were one
whenever we locked eyes from across the room.
I would look to you
as if you were a mirror of me.
As if by looking into you,
my own reflection,
I would see.
You represented all I wanted to know.
You represented all I wanted to be.
Otherworldly
you seemed to float down from heaven;
You seemed like an impossible dream.