tinted raze i used to collect cheap sunglasses. i found them on racks in gas stations and department stores. round frames with yellow lenses. thick black roy orbison goggles. square silver rims with milky lenses stained orange. they're useless to me now. adolescent myopia made sure of that. but i still have them. all except for the pair i forgot on top of a toilet paper dispenser at the bay after taking a nervous, unsatisfying shit. they were the ones i liked best. they had a curved body that was red like these walls. they were gone when i came back for them. some of the sunglasses i can't wear anymore pinch the faces of the plush cats and ducks and dogs that sit on top of my smallest bookshelf. others are buried beneath decades of dust in a plastic shopping bag. the only shades i wear these days are ray-bans. aviators with an amber tint. just like the glasses my dad is wearing in my favourite picture of him. the one that shows him at a dinner party four years before i was born, murdering my mother with his eyes after she got drunk and flirted with another woman's husband. today in the park a stranger told me he liked my glasses. he looked about twelve. he was wearing track pants and a blue shirt. he was alone. some people have faces that make you want to hug them, because their eyes tell you how much they care. about everything. his was one of those. thank you, i said. thanks very much. and i meant it. 220707 what's it to you? who go blather from