My inspiration for this poem was 23 years of questions, 23 years of people asking what do I really mean, and 23 years to piece myself, for some peace.
Allah is The Greatest.
Your first breath.
It’s in your ear.
Your last breath.
It’s in your ear.
Your elders’ prayer; it’s in their heart.
Your first pilgrimage; it’s on their tongues.
It’s on the walls of your first house, on the calendar board with the small white papers.
It’s everywhere, but it was never in me.
Don’t get me wrong, I know what I’m saying. Patience, you’ll know what I mean.
Patience.
Sabr.
In a blurry memory, I see the gleaming desert, a bus I can't remember the color of, but I can remember the day I dislodged my knee. It's in my memory, engraved and replayed so many times that it took me years to realize it was probably a quick injury. It felt and is recalled under the disguise of long slow minutes. The uncolored bus took us to a summer school.
Quraniya.
I memorized, I recited, I prayed.
I went home, I played, I prayed.
I can't tell when it happened, but I’ve always been an observer. Never questioned anything. Never asked why God made things the way they were, because inside me were neurons connecting everything. A child, with binoculars that worked as magnifying glasses at the same time. I saw the big and the small, and I connected.
A chatterbox, but I can't remember my voice anymore. I can't remember what I used to do or say. I have visions of things I don't know that are true or veiled dreams.
I grew up.
I grew in a dark embrace in a room filled with graffiti. A room with its biggest mural a simple three lettered word. Why.
Why.
Why.
Why.
I don’t have the answers anymore, the dark is too loud and the light is fleeting, but I am still the observer with binoculars and telescopes as eyes. I questioned in silence.
I took a silence vow for a week.
I remember the last prayer.
I was angry. I was so angry that I made sure that the last one was perfect. Fully veiled in my mother’s jilbab, I was an angry devotee. I sat with Him. I cried. I promised that it was the last time.
Things changed.
It's not so dark now, so don't worry.
You’ll see what I mean.
Sabr.
I thought I stopped believing.
I felt betrayed, and hurt, and unbelievably deceived.
Books and quotes and scripts and stories.
Doubt.
Doubt.
Doubt.
I doubted my existence. Am I real? Or am I a figment of imagination? Am I dreaming? Do I exist or am I a blurry face in someone’s dream?
Why me?
Who me.
How.
I found the answers inside of me.
Why, because the horizon for learning is ever so far. Learn. Knowledge. Passion. Challenge.
Who, a physical being in a place so big that I’m very very small. A big place to see, an entire planet to see.
How? (I’m working on that)
I revisit it, I can't escape it, but I made peace with it. Allah is The Greatest.
He is us, and we are Him. My touch, a prayer of sensation. A prayer of excited nerves. A prayer that feels shapes.
My sight, a prayer of colors and admiration. A prayer of wonder and lust. A prayer of thought and discovery.
My breath, breathe now. Breathe and hold for three seconds. One. Two. Three. Exhale. A prayer of comfort, do you feel it? A prayer in all of us, a prayer that is nonstop. A prayer that paints pictures of scenes in your mind. Memories of a past you. Memories of a hungry you.
Breathe.
My hearing, a prayer called. A prayer of comfort, a prayer in unfamiliar sounds. A prayer of protection from danger that cannot be seen just yet, but it’s close.
A scream, a laugh, a question. You hear prayers of wonder and of empathy.
I found Him in everything. I found Him in my light and dark. I’m not angry. I’m not happy. I’m His friend.
I found Him in the untraditional. In the unethical. In the barbarism of life as we know it. I found Him in a place where people will call infidelity and atheism. I’m not an atheist.
I pray for Him everyday every second, by existing.
And if I cease to exist, I know He knows. I’m not afraid.
R.A. is a poet based in Abu Dhabi. Just a confused world from a confused woman's mind. She observes and thinks; she observes and imagines; she observes and prays. She wonders what life is like before and how it will be. She wonders how life was if she didn't make it, and how life would be if she wasn't. She knows it sounds macabre, but she’s a wonderer, and she hopes her wonder takes her somewhere magical.
