I was born behind an old bakery, in a cardboard box that barely kept out the cold. I don’t remember my mother’s face—I never saw it. You see, I was born blind. The world to me has always been darkness, wrapped in sound and scent.
When I was still small, I used to feel my siblings pressing close to me for warmth. They played, they ran, they climbed, and I listened to their laughter, their joy. But I could never join them. I stumbled. I bumped into things. I was… different.
They were adopted quickly. People came and scooped them up, cooing over their bright eyes and fluffy fur. They never noticed me hiding in the corner, my head low, my ears drooping. I stayed behind—alone.
Eventually, someone found me and brought me to a shelter. They were kind, at least. They gave me food, a soft blanket, and a small toy that jingled when I batted at it. That sound—it became my comfort. My only friend.
I didn’t ask for much.
I never meowed too loud. I didn’t beg for attention like the kittens around me. But every now and then, I would lift my face toward the sound of footsteps. I would hope. Maybe today someone would choose me.
But it never happened.
I heard the whispers.
“Poor thing, she’s blind…”
“She’s not as cute as the others.”
“Her face looks strange.”
I didn’t know what I looked like, not really. I had a sense that my fur wasn’t soft like theirs, and that my eyes looked different. Once, I overheard someone say they looked “cloudy” and “broken.”
And so I stopped hoping.
One night, as I lay curled up in the farthest corner of the shelter, I whispered to myself:
“I know they won’t give me a kiss… because I am not pretty.”
I wasn’t bitter. Just tired. Tired of being invisible. Tired of being the one left behind. I imagined what a kiss might feel like. Warm… gentle… real. But I had never known it. Not even once.
Until her.
Her name was Mira. She didn’t walk past me like the others. She sat down beside my crate, not saying a word. I heard her heartbeat, calm and steady. I could smell something soft and kind in her scent—like warm tea and lavender.
She opened the crate slowly, careful not to startle me. I flinched, but she didn’t pull away.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice like a lullaby. “I see you.”
See me? I thought.
She reached out her hand and let it rest near my paw. I gently tapped it with mine. And then she did something no one had ever done before.
She kissed me.
Right on the top of my head. Her lips brushed my fur, and I froze—not in fear, but in awe. It was real. Soft. Safe.
And I cried. Not loud, not with sound—but the kind of cry only someone who has been waiting forever would understand. Mira held me close, whispering over and over, “You are beautiful. You are so, so beautiful.”
She took me home that night.
Now I sleep on a real bed, in a warm house filled with gentle music and the scent of blooming plants. Mira talks to me every day. She kisses me every morning. She calls me her “little moonlight” because even though I can’t see, she says I glow.
And even now, sometimes, I still whisper that old phrase out of habit:
“I know they won’t give me a kiss because I am not pretty.”
But Mira always hears me. And every time, she answers with the same soft kiss.
Because to her, I am not just pretty.
To her, I am loved.
