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I am the most faithful faithless person
A friend told me that, and my heart pounded
The texture of sin still fresh in my mind
Grating itself against my mind and heart
Even after years of sloughing off, unlearning
But everything lingers, it always does
The curse disguised as a blessing I was born into
Grateful the only word etched on my tongue
For what else is there to feel, we were the lucky ones
To be brought into this world by the apparent one and only
And brought out at the end to a place suffering is unheard of
Unless you avoided sufferance in the world, so you will come to know it then
But nobody can ever avoid it here, it’s enmeshed in everything
But what’s fair is fair, nobody escapes it
I was young, the end was nigh
Lurking, constant, carved deep into my mind
In religious classes, lessons on the qayamat
The bell rings, the only sound cutting it off
was the passionate speech of the teacher
Images of the end, the wind, the water, the cracks in the earth, the sun, the many deaths
I kept thinking of everything I’ve done
Looking out the window, I see the horizon bend
A skyscraper collapsing, crushing my family for all I’ve done
The bell kept ringing, then silence
But it kept ringing in my ears when I get home
When I heard the bells again, all morning and afternoon in school
I thought again and again about the qayamat
I never prayed, my knees clean and smooth
Because it has never been pressed into the praying mat
To test us, my teacher had us perform the wudu in front of her
I spent the night before memorizing the steps, doing it over and over under the tap until I resented the water
When I got home that day I forgot all about it again
But whenever the bells rang, I pictured my sins
So heavy that the earth cracks open beneath it
Opening wide, swallowing my family as I watched
My eyes turn cloudy like an animal’s, my feet where my hands are and hands where my feet are
And I would fail to walk the Sirat bridge
Falling down and down into sufferance
Only then did I call out the name in my mind
Out of fear, fear for mostly my family
Anxiety gripped me when I was forced to reckon with the divine
The dread becoming familiar with creeping time
Everytime I hear the bell ring reality crashed into me
It felt illusive, everything I have been taught and told about
All in the language of fear
I feared almost everything, myself my body my mind the sky the sun the trees the buildings the animals
While everyone else continued on,
Gratefulness etched bloody into their mouths,
I wept about my inability to open my heart, it was all my fault
I kept debating with people in my mind about what we’ve been taught
About existence, non-existence, probability, reasonings
I couldn’t let anyone know about it, even my loved ones
For death, mentally and worse, physically
Awaits me if it ever comes to light
I rebelled against so many ideas, against the fear
Quietly, I sloughed it off like dead skin
Today, I am still unlearning
Cautious but with an unwaveringness
Decentering it all and placing my own love at the center
And I began to see things more as they are physically
I have faith now in the universe instead
In nature, in the night sky when I look up, in the rain when it hits the roof of buildings
Which for a brief second sounded like the ringing of school bells
But only for a brief second, not enough for me to dwell on
My kindness to people now uncalculative
My generosity to myself without limits
So full and overflowing, like the rising of sea levels
Which for a moment made me lose faith in humanity
But I’ve learnt not to fear, that the sun will keep shining despite everything
And I’ve learnt to not let things get in the way of life
To bend with the wind and actually be grateful for the first time in my life
To always remember how wonderful this present life is
Which I have always begged for forgiveness from myself
For always forgetting and fearing.
Written By: Natasha
Edited By: Zhen Li
