I perch quietly on the bridge of her nose,

two clear windows shaping the world into focus.

Through me, mountains have straightened their backs, skylines have sharpened their

teeth,

and faces - so many faces - have unfolded like books.

I have watched strangers become friends,

friends become lovers,

and lovers dissolve into silhouettes,

leaving only smudges of memory on my lenses.

Each fingerprint wiped away carries a trace of laughter, or a tear caught mid-blink.

Landscapes have marched past me in silence:

the slow green crawl of forests,

the restless shimmer of oceans,

city streets vibrating with neon veins.

I have seen rain bead and slide down glass towers,

reflections doubling the sky

so she never knew which horizon was true.

From my place so close to her eyes,

I feel her squint soften into wonder

when fireworks bloom over summer fields,

or when the sun lays itself down

behind a horizon painted in bruised purples and fire.

I also feel the heaviness -

the long stare at an office ceiling,

the blur of hospital tiles,

the hollow gaze into an empty seat across a café table.

Unlike her, I never look away.

I do not forget.

I have held it all in my curved panes

the rise and fall of years,

the scaffolding of cities climbing higher,

the wrinkles carving their gentle rivers across familiar faces.

She thinks I am only her sight.

But I am also her witness,

a keeper of countless worlds

that live and vanish ea

ch time she lifts me from her face

and sets me down in the dark.