On a Day Like Today

After years of living in the sense of lost, after years of trying to maintain the needed hope, after saying all the prayers needed to preserve wisdom, after all years of avoiding insanity, after all the years of being in denial and convincing myself of Holding on, I come to realize that years would never stop passing by and this day of the year would no doubt come and I have to face it.

I'm away from beloved Baghdad. I'm away from family and friends. I'm away from the land I was born on; away of the soil I took my first step on, away from the house I was raised in, away from my neighbors, I'm away … but… not mind and soul.
War, chaos, loss of uncountable people and things, unemployment, corrupted system, mysteries, sadness, chain of mischief, lost dreams, burnt houses, smell of death, widows, orphans, tears, sad stories, cruel memories… That's all what we are left with?

Promises are never kept. Lies are said for free. History is writing while people are looking away. I don't want to write another poem. It's just the same haunting story. Politicians are merely but a joke. People are treated like sheep. An observer is watching like a jerk.

I don't want to sound devastated. I don't want to show despair. I just want to tell you the picture is not pleasant, And it needs a lot of repair. What's going on right now is unfair.

I lost my focus and lost my words. I'm not sure if it makes sense. But that's all you're going to get on a Day Like Today. Life is frozen… the clock is broken. The prayers you're saying are not answered today.

It may read like a poem. It may seem like an epitaph but it's nothing but a stirring thought; A rage that has been calm; Waiting for the right time: to take an action and answer the call of the Palm.

Oh Iraq, returning has become the dream that makes my day. Your memory is the sweetness in this bitter life. You are the sound of laughter, background music for this noisy life, the kiss on a mother's forehead, the grip of an infant fist.

That's all for now.