Fairouz Bsharat
sing psalms to the empty, open palms and fill them
put Your palms together and pray
for the atheist that lay still
on the white sheets
in a stale-smelling sterile hospital bed They might not believe in Your God But all You can do is
Hope Believe
Hope cannot bring Your God back down to kiss the atheists eyelids open
so Believe in His Books
bust open a Bible
and read religiously aloud
so that music may carry this lost soul back to You
Accept
belief hasn’t brought back Your
Friend but you can’t blame Your
God for He has done what he sees fit Your Acceptance may give them peace so mourn a forgotten soul
this is Your prayer of faith to a
a Friendship forevermore
Love
Memories can be Your Church
and Your pews will be full
the stained glass will feature Your god guiding a soul long gone
the atheist may not have believed in Your god
but they did believe in Your
Love
Fairouz Bsharat is a junior Literary Arts major at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for the Arts and Technology and the current Virginia Youth Poet Laureate for Chester! She has won first place in the Fledge National Fiction Competition, been named a young poet in the community by the Poetry Society of VA, and has had her poetry published in Appelley Publishing Magazine, Young Writers USA, Virginia Bards Central Review 2022, American High School Poets – May Flowers 2023 anthology, and in ASGARD (her own schools literary magazine). She hopes to one day inspire people with her work.
