by Rania Mukhar
As it checked upon its nest, I realized both the wise bird and I saw danger in each other…
How could I explain that I did not mean any harm to its future?
And with that thought, the midnight hunter headed toward me with its weapons…
Tearing me apart with its beak… Scratching me deeply with its sharp daggers…
Pushing me farther and farther away from its territory…
Scraping my soul out of my feet, making sure I could not go back there…
I watched the feathers of reason unjustly destroy my mortal shape…
And with my open wounds, I was left lying in awe…"
Joy: “Is that why you ended up in a wheelchair? Is that why you can’t walk anymore?”
Mother: “No, my dear child, it’s not… This is because of the miles I have walked to get here…”
Joy: “So was it a nightmare?”
Mother: "It was torture for sure… But I am not sure if it was real because I found myself lying on the floor…
I was barefoot in an elevator that somehow crashed…
I must have been in a rush to get in… I was wearing my nightgown without my slippers…
Maybe I had fallen and dreamt of the owl…or maybe the trauma of the owl sent my thoughts to here…
I tried to press the call button for help, but no one responded to my needs…
Every few minutes, I would feel the escalator move down…
As if waiting for me to confess my secrets, the box of metal teased my fear with its movement…
Like a captured animal, I banged the door with all my might…
But like this dumb room, I was not capable to understand the way out…
Why couldn’t this lift take me up instead of down? Why didn’t I take the stairs if I was running for my life?
And soon enough, the ropes that held me hanging on to hope let go…
I heard the strings turn into threads… And the threads tear into space…
As I plunged downward faster than the speed of light, I flipped and turned like a piece of glass…
Shattering with every bump… And scattering into meaningless pieces of scraps…
Buried beneath the broken walls of stone, I became a pebble lost in the earth…"
Joy: “Did you survive the crash? Did anyone pick you up?”
Mother: "I must have if it was real… At some point I heard the sirens of help…
My awareness was strong but my consciousness was broken…
I felt myself lying on a bed stuffed with tubes of all sizes…
I was dead to those around me… Yet I could hear the sound of my heart…
The beep was telling them I exist, but my body told them otherwise…
Stuck in this trance, I heard the familiar voices discuss my fate…
My words flattened by some sort of numbness…
‘I am alive, don’t give up,’ but all I could hear was the sound of my heart…
They studied the machines around me for clues…
And they gathered this superficial evidence to prove my insignificance…
As time passed, I sensed my skin and bones decay into a breathing corpse…
The deterioration of my appearance confirmed their shallow studies…
I heard each coward exit the room as they watched my executioner prepare for his task…
On their behalf, his axe cut the strand my heart needed to signal its message of hope…"
Joy: “Did you find your faith again?”
Mother: "I eventually saw the light in the forest once again…
The sun warmed up the earth like a beautiful fireplace…
I felt the chill around me melt as the rays kissed my skin…
I thought maybe this was heaven…maybe when I was let go, my angel brought me here…
The star of daylight sparkled waves of affection that I absorbed…
The light from this ball of fire dressed the forest in its beauty…
I felt as if the goddess of sun showed great affection toward earth…
With her powers, she shed kindness upon us all…
I got up and walked toward the pond…as I bent toward the water to wash my face, I saw the angel in the reflection…
I realized I was looking in everyone and in everything for myself and yet I never thought to look into my own eyes…
I abandoned my heart and mind…
My soul suffered without my care…
I couldn’t hear love anymore…
I hid from those who never gave up on me…
I focused on my mistakes instead of my victories…
I lost many friends and trusted the wrong strangers…
My journey within myself was not easy but it was worth every step…
And then, I had you!"