Little could have prepared me for the empty sockets

Behind his large reflective frames

I’ve spent all this time learning

How to read a person from his gaze

Exploring the ways

His iris and pupil interplay

Searching for something even deeper

Useless now.

How jarring, to have no window into this man’s soul

And yet he remains balanced, incomplete yet whole

He tells me he is lucky – after all, he is still alive

He’s only just lost his sight.

He is all laughter, he is all light

Even though all he has known for three months is darkness.

You and I know darkness too.

But we could never know it as intimately as him

He, who lived 36 years never thinking that one day soon

He would have seen his last full moon,

His last favorite painting, film, person.

His last reflection.

This man, young and strong and full of hope

Once had the globe

And now has none

Orbiting alone in a space without sun

My hands shake at the slit lamp

As I pretend to know

What it is that I am looking for

In these empty sockets.

Author Description:  “I once saw a man with no eyes” is an ode to a patient seen during the author’s ophthalmology elective as a third year medical student. Throughout this poem, vision is explored as both a biological function and as an abstract concept involving perspective, experience, and hope for the future. While the subject is facing a profound hardship evident to those around him, it is juxtaposed by his own good spirits as he remains grateful for his life. 

Download a copy of I once saw a man with no eyes – Rida Khan

Bio: Rida Khan is a medical student at New York Medical College. She attended Fordham University in New York for her undergraduate education, where she studied Biological Sciences and English. Rida’s work has previously been published in other narrative medicine journals, including Hektoen International and Quill and Scope.