Disabling Aid

When I was a young boy before being diagnosed as shortsighted my father used to shout at me for sitting to close to the TV and then I was sent to my room if I sat with my siblings and squinted at it. Wearing glasses has been a mixed blessing but perhaps the greatest challenges are faced by those who need no aids to help them belong….

Here they rest gently 

A pair of gold glasses

Carefully chosen to show me at best

To help me see others (and others see ‘me’)

A wonderful tool that helped me belong

Preventing my squinting at TVs and friends

And ending my banishment to rooms all alone

When first they appeared I sighed with relief 

But help such as this comes with insults and slurs

Specky and Four-eyes and Goggles and more.

What helped me belong now set me apart.

In place of becoming lay a broken heart.

Why do we see others through what they use?

A wheelchair, a stick, a bag, or a dog?

The touchstone of glasses and all of our aids

opens our eyes to those who won’t see.

(Andrew Dotchin – St Martin in the Fields, October 2026)