What is this worm that has affected
our brains and remains in living tissue to
eat away slowly at our frontal lobes?

Are we having a lobotomy so that all that
makes us thinking humans is being
excised carefully to leave nothing but hate?

Where have the good people gone that
once believed in embracing the stranger
and accepting those who come in faith?

Are we so addicted to the drug of division
that we cannot see the wood rot that’s showing
in all that we once believed in building a shelter?

Or am I the stranger, the naïve one, who used
to believe we were not a racist land, not
driven by phobia, celebrating our diversity
in a place open to the world with many gods:
plural, spacious, hospitable, spiritually and
culturally unafraid, smiling at our future?

What has happened to us?
Where is my lost homeland?
Do I even recognise my own face?

26/2/2026