This Is What I Want You To See When You Look At Me

I want to know what you see
when you look at me.
Is it brown eyes, searching
your face? Is it a smile, pulling
you closer? Is it arms and legs,
muscles and curves?
Do you feel uncomfortable
by the way I look
with my head straight, gazed fixed
and unwavering?
When you look at me,
do you see mascara on my eyelashes?
Blush on my cheeks?
Glamorous shoes on my feet?
When you look at me,
do you see fingers with rings,
manicured and delicate?
Do you see tiredness from work,
a smudge of dirt on my hands, worn out wheelchair from the places I’ve wandered?
Because when you look at me,
I want you to see fierceness and grace.
I want you to see hands, worn
from both labor and love.
I want you to see arms, strong
from the paths I’ve rolled
and the burdens I’ve carried.
I want you to see a heart
big and beating
and shining boldly through my smile.
When you look at me,
I don’t want you to just see
disability, body, female, pretty.
I don’t want you to just see
fragile, deformities, short, small.
I don’t want you to just see
chest, back, lashes, legs.
I want you to see where I’ve come from and who I’ve become, the laughter from my lips and the faraway look in my eyes
when I start to remember what I’ve lost.
I want you to feel the warmth of my love, touch my soul with your mind.
I want you to know I’m not just a disabled woman, a human, a body.
But a force, an energy, a soul.
I want you to know we are so different, so complex, so disconnected.
But I want you to look at me and see we are the same.