Prose - The emptiness

It is not that I don't worry about the safety of my eternal soul but simply that I dance with the emptiness right here on Earth and it consumes me more than questioning the existence of the pearly gates.

I remember that day - me, enveloped by my grandma's sweater at the entrance of the supermarket, staring at a woman on her knees with a child in her arms. People walked in and out with their bananas and baggets as the baby right there at the door wailed in hunger.

I could not be more than six. I wasn't in school yet I had already learned that good people can suffer terrible things. This was the first time I know I tasted the void. But there were many others.

My uncle and aunt were lost in a car accident leaving four children behind. A friend, pregnant, ready to be the best mom in the world, died at the birthing bed. In 2018, a teenager with leprosy, held out his hands for me on the street almost as if saying: here. taste. The. Void.

And I did. And I do.

I worship those who have tasted the void and still choose to be joyful and kind.

May I live by it, whatever may come.