Mutilations

A World of Mutilations

Every morning I wake up to a world of mutilations:

What we knew as up is down now.

Down is right.

Good is good for me.

Outlaws make the law.

I step outside

to take a picture,

to find inspiration for a poem,

to look for an idea,

to find some signs of health and healing,

I see nothing but scar tissue, wounds, and bruises.

The mutilator in chief laughs.

Whatever he does, he does out of spite.

His surgical knife is a blunt crosscut saw.

What does it mean to take a picture?

What does it mean to write a poem,

or even to have a thought?

Acts of desperation,

stemming from a state of deep depression.

Every night I go to bed,

hoping the hope for an end to hopelessness.

Adnan Adam Onart

Cambridge MA, 2017