after Hanif Abdurraqib
God, I can no longer tell the difference between divine intervention and wishful thinking. Perhaps that’s proof of you most of all, the freedom of delusion despite the written end, the persistence of fate only when I will it to be. God, as a child I learned of the betrayals of judgment day, how when harshly judged before you and turning to everyone we have ever known, none would speak in our defence. And I wondered then what heaven would have to offer me without the human urge to sacrifice it in the name of devotion, without the falling for the sake of the fallen. God, I can’t stop grieving the loss of grief, can’t stop re-weaving the unravelling threads between love and time. I guess in that way I still carry it with me, can still take some semblance of it with me to eternity. God, most days I beg for it all to pass but some days I wish for the continued heartache in secret, a reminder of all that this soul is capable of. God, I’m trying to unearth the version of myself that’s untied from the longing but keep longing for more of it. God, I can’t imagine an afterlife worth living without the unfulfilled heart, without the need to consume in its wake. God, I’m trying to make peace with the idea of everlasting peace but I’m afraid of disappearing if I succumb to it. God, I want to be wanted for all that’s restless and unholy within me, have it be held rather than vanished away. God, I don’t know how to strive for a salvation in which I can’t hold the hand of the girl I love, or one that strips me of that desire. God, I want to keep watching the raindrops racing on the car window as I contemplate your existence, I want the possibility gifted by the unanswered questions, I want to keep pretending I could be worthy. God, I want the hope that comes with doubt, I want the ability to choose this faith in the absence of its certainty, I want to dream up a version of it that has room for me and room to believe it could be true. God, I want heaven to have the kind of love you see on escalators, two people leaning back on each other just to take advantage of an in-between moment of stillness, physically unable to keep from loving.
Zoha Sh. is a queer South Asian Muslim writer. Her work has been published in the Liminal Review, Fahmidan Journal, the B'K's All My Relations, Poetically Magazine, and elsewhere.
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