Something Is Always About To Happen

i’ve never felt holy.

not even when i prayed

every single day.

my body bent the right way,

forehead to the mat—

but my mind stayed bent too:

off-tuned, restless,

filled with wrong questions

no one wanted to hear.

i hated how faith came

with instructions—

how to walk,

how to talk,

how to feel,

even when you didn’t.

some nights, i still tried.

not for god,

but for quiet.

i whispered into the dark

like it was a doorway—

but nothing whispered back.

i prayed like talking

into a well

with no echo.

no reply,

no signs.

just stillness

stacked on stillness.

i learned how to fold myself

into rituals,

into silence,

into being good

at seeming good.

and still,

i never felt watched

in the way you’re supposed to.

never felt held.

what kind of believer

only prays for peace

when no one’s looking?

what kind of faith

only flickers

in the absence

of certainty?

i don’t want to leave it behind.

but i don’t know

how to stay.

so i hover—

in rooms, in routines,

in nameless wanting.

they say something is always

about to happen.

but what if it doesn’t?

what if faith

is the waiting?

i hope

i learn

to stay still

long enough

to notice.

Maryam is a writer from Karachi, a city that never slows down. Her body is in one place, but her mind runs wild to a thousand others. Writing is how she tries to keep it all calm. She reads often and writes to make sense of what she feels, turning the chaos around her into something quieter on the page.