After the cataract surgery

I thought after getting my eyes fixed everything would be perfect.

But, suddenly, I noticed how old I look. Is this how others see me? Grey, veiny, flabby, crepe-paper skin. Tea-stained teeth.

Like an old Twilight Zone episode, the irony of good cancelled out, subsumed by a new revelation. The one thing that completes, now disrupts, throws the wheel out of whack.

One step forward, one step back. Pull back the curtain.

I can see so much more clearly:

What others have known all along:

This façade, these bones are sailing away

Nothing is as it seems.