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