Dave Bonta's short poem opens with a question that sounds lost: "Where will I go?" The speaker imagines a moment when two people, probably a couple, start calling each other mad. The wedding imagery, "bride's and bridegroom's ribbons," suggests a relationship being literally unfastened, its decorations pulled off one by one.
The last lines turn violent and strange. The speaker pictures "five o'clock scissors" being played with "like mad" among their papers. Five o'clock suggests the end of a working day, so the cutting feels almost routine, careless, tired. Papers might stand for documents, writing, or the record of a shared life, and the scissors threaten all of it. The title, "Cut Up," fits both the physical snipping and the emotional hurt.
The speaker seems anxious and unsettled, afraid of being left with nowhere to turn. The mood is tense and dreamlike, with the repeated "mad" making the quarrel feel both frantic and absurd.