Abrupt Disrupt: A PoetryVoice

By Ebtisam Elghblawi

A wide footpath, familiar, ordinary.

                Nothing asked of me except to keep moving forward.

                            My thoughts were elsewhere.

                                  Small things.

                                  Passing things.

                  The kind that don’t matter until something big

                                   replaces them

                                      Fiercely.

             There was no warning. No voice. No bell.

                      No shadow stretching ahead of me.

                         Just impact intruding

                          into my personal space,

                       breaking through my back,

                           out of the blue.

                              Out of nowhere.

                           It came from behind,

                    where safety should have been the trust.

                   A fragile utopia of ordinary movement.

                    Where you don’t look behind because

                      you believe you don’t have to.

                                My back took it first.

                     A blunt stroke delivered at high speed

                                   and force,

                             without consent,

                            without permission,

                             without warning.

                       My body moved before I agreed to.

                                     Then

                                   the ground.

                             Closer than expected.

                              Harder than remembered.

                       It didn’t catch me,

                            it stopped me.

                       For a moment,

                      nothing made sense.

                    Not the angle of my limbs.

                 Not the sudden silence inside my head.

                            Sound returned slowly.

                            Not clear, just fragments.

                                     Pieces.

                 Unlawful forceful motion behind me

                         that didn’t belong to me.

                       A complete intruder,

                                 invader.

                     I stayed there longer

                        than I should have.

                 Never arrived at my destination.

                                     Only

                                Agnostic pain

                         arrived without hesitancy

                                   or mercy.

                           It didn’t ask for a permit.

                         It settled in,

                             piercing

                     as if it had licence to do so.

                         At that unrealistic awkwardness.

                   I tried to understand what had happened

                     and what had struck me from behind

                        so violently, so brutally,

                                into my back,

                               on the footpath.

                           I couldn’t …

                                  I was lost,

                                    confused

                               and jumbled

                                  in thoughts.

                But the mind lagged behind the body

                       in those appalling moments.

                         It’s beyond imaginations.

                       Beyond words to describe.

                      It searched for logic

                        where there was only force.

                            A footpath

                           is a simple promise.

                       It tells you:

                walk, and you will not be struck from behind.

                         That promise broke

                           without ceremony.

                      Just disorder and dysfunction.

                              After that,

                          the space has changed.

                              The same pavement.

                              The same direction.

                               But no longer safe.

                          A shift and drift

                                 in the air.

                         A tension in my back

                       that wasn’t there before.

                      As if the ground and I,

                       are still negotiating terms.

                     There is no visible marks

                           that explains it all.

                       No clear line between

                            before and after.

                     But I know where it sits

                       and hurts with its scars.

                          It is not just the impact.

                           It was the way it arrived,

                                  uninvited,

                                     unseen,

                                   and certain.

                          With setbacks for life,

                             the way it stayed.

                     And yet,

                the water drops on those hanging branches

                               will always,

                          flow,

                               cleanse,

                                    thrive,

                                         and revive

                             through obstacles

                              and will bloom

                     and shall never be the same water

                               twice again

                       —like a stream that never stops moving.

                           It will always be evolving,

                                    adapting,

                            and finding new paths

                                     to thrive.

Ebtisam Elghblawi Biography
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Ebtisam was assaulted badly by e-bike rider who ran into her back from behind where she was walking on her peace on the day time on the footpath and the perpetrator ran away leaving her with multiple fractures and pain that it has its after effects till date. She writes to express her pain and her emotions deeply.