WOMAN BUTCHERED

Ayad Gharbawi

Child that gathered knowledge

Knowledge frightening to human nature

Girl-child was awakened

Herself she awakened

Saw the glow of eyes buttery

Glow of hatred molten

Glow of rape howling

Child, pretended innocence pretty

Child smiled all along the paths unknown

Yet, her body recognized colours unimaginable in their

serenity sublime

Figures in her sleep strange, yet beautiful

Songs of sweet sleep, yet alerting in their soothing

abilities

Little girl, who are you?

Why won’t you let us

Define you?

Little girl

Honourable lady woman

Did you grow up at all?

Or did you just die in your infancy?

As so many before you have

Did you come

To feel and understand

Your sensitive dimensions?

We would have made sure that you would be mature

If you were submissive enough for us!

Child girl, laughs uneasily and seriously

Child girl, sees lofty, exalted visions possessive

Visions of history’s episodes are expressed pointedly in

your compulsive embraces

The foolish martyred are reading holy sermons for their self

remembrance

Soldier unknown unmasking his face mangled to the surprised

horror and utter disgust

Of his family, friends and other serious clowns

Singing an anthem of Fate’s real truth and nature and

essence

Heroine unnumbered, chained to deformity

And becoming a mirror of what they did chain you to

Child girl scarred and petrified by disturbed scenes

committed lovingly and lavishly by Man

Child girl curls, yet anticipates

Listen! The foot-steps frighten you once more

The shrieking manic clown has arrived again, red eyed and

even more

Laughing dreary, spitting words jumbled and aloud

Figure of shame stands in front of you

Intents pre-arranged by his late father

Little girl!

Are you a woman yet?

Hearing swirls of delirious, sickening

Madness, uncontrollable panic and deathly angst

Hearing painter’s brush strokes that scream their gasps of

breathlessness out

Loudly and chaotically

Hears the anguish of colours’ contrasts and contradict each

other to the point of

Serious suicide

Little child! Sees the begging deaf pleading for choirs

heavenly to sing seriously

Sees the miserable, emaciated crumbles crumbling,

Yet foolishly searching for a non-existent tenderness in

darkness painted by drunken Satans

With the foulest, blackest oil colours in their leprous

fingers

They try to paint you; define you

Analyze you; dissect you

Categorize you; classify you

Little girl; woman; virgin?

Alone and sincerely and deceptively guided by complicated,

intertwining hatreds

That severely despised the existence of each other’s truths

and falsities

Feeling sovereignty abused by casual, bored

Unconcerned sub-humans in powerful positions on earth

Pierced in pain

My sweet girl, you are now

Pierced in deathly, unforgiving