[It Is Time]
By Mohamad Mohamad-Sharin

The sight of the plain, white ceiling looked different the morning I woke up to it. Inside my head, thousands and thousands of thoughts were running through, all bundled up together, simultaneously demanding my best of attention. Some of them craved more of it than others, driving me extra hard, trying to decipher their message and relevance. Gazing it for a while, the ceiling looked pale in comparison than these insights, in terms of how they would and had influence the course of life of mine. Living to a scripted destiny that is illuminated by various colors of emotions and decorated by the flapping banners of hardships, life it seems have a more different meaning and depth of relations that I thought it had.

Yesterday, I had a talk, a long and exhaustive one, with an acquaintance that I presumed was more than just that of her, especially by what kind of an impact she had had on me after yesterday’s event, the things she revealed as sincere as the smile she gifted me with. From her, I learned new things, new realizations, of how reality works in manners that were never truly understood by anyone, not even by the most savants of savants. From her lips, came out the longed truth in its own most naked form: a sad and painful one. The one that reminds you through and through of how helpless we are and how devastating it is for this youth and energy to be wasted on matters that do not concern you and me as we have thought it would. Yes, it was about love and friendship and everything in between the two.

The hassle and the joy, the agony and the sweetness; they all seemed distant from where I was standing then. Who would think that I almost fell to this chasm of infatuation, as blinded as I am? It never occurred to me before that this dreaded phase of maturity has set foot so near to me so very often, so very early. I am yet to prepare for its existence, moreover its howl of urge, its spiked tongue of vile. Will I survive, provided how awkward and alienated to me this thing is, this beast that bites barbarically and kiss lustfully at once?

Oh! There are so many things to say and think and feel and decide. No wonder the greatest of lovers in time had had their life shortened by this gnawing rat. How Romeo and Juliet idealized the sacrifice of passion, leveling it to the misery of suicide and this mystified suffering continue to mesmerize adolescents and fools. Deciding on a road that has inflicted sorrow, unique upon whom that chooses, and knowing that it inevitably will, requires more than what the soul and the mind combined could provide alone. All this demands more than just the will of desire and the sanity of decision, all of this longs for the spirit of youth and everlasting patience to glue and harmonize two opposite beings from two contradictory worlds.

I woke up to the sound of a call. The freshness of the morning air calmed me to its shattering echo; the smoothness of the light of dawn opened my perception to its message, for I am not ready to commit myself to love, not now, not soon. I will let fate to tap me warmly on the shoulder, informing me with a gentle whisper of “It is time”. Then, I would embrace it with my arms wide open and a smile of sheer delight.