The Wait that Screams - I

    There are times when it feels like a burnt iron rod is being driven into your soul. And from its fire, parts of the soul withers away. And you can witness the remnants fading into ashes. You barely heal before another rod gets driven into you and it repeats again and again, sometimes you cry out, it never escapes and it doesn't stop burning. As the fire spreads and burns your soul, you drag your feet to salah. It sounds so bitter when you call upon God, it tastes like you're being made to eat mud and be thankful. There's an angry voice at the back of your mind, which keeps telling " If He was that Merciful, He'd have spared me the pain, at least granted me death, He doesn't hear me. I called upon Him day and night to be only met with a deafening silence." And the mind tells you it's hopeless, it's not real when your heart still prays for miracles. And through those moments that break us, and from the deafening silence, you kind of understand perhaps not everyone gets miracles and this time there isn't one for you either. And it becomes clear that there is no miracle, that your logical brain was right all along.    

 

    The adhaan gets called, and you feel as though your years of worship went down the drain,unheard, met with deafening silences, when the fog never cleared and it made sense, perhaps there isn't any door to choose. But rather just to accept that there is no door. That what you asked for is perhaps not going to be given to you in this lifetime.

    You start the salah and as you recite Surah Al-Fatihah, in that moment it feels like swallowing dust, as you recite every verse and when you go down for sujood, you've got nothing else to ask for anymore, the words don't escape your mouth, as fear engulfs you, "I don't have the strength to break anymore. I don't have the strength to get disappointed anymore. Hope kills." And you rush through the rakahs, and when you complete it, you don't have it the strength to make dua, it's too painful, you leave. And as it settles into your heart, that you have no control and all of it was Qadr, a small whisper escapes, "Astagfirullah. Alhamdulilah". Even though it feels like eating mud - gritty and sour.