Zahra Rafli

Zahra Rafli is a participant in Poetic Portraits, an intergenerational creative project to showcase the creative talent and diverse life experiences of different generations in Monash.

Zahra Rafli spends most of her time in the arena of university as a student, crunching numbers as a bookkeeper, and sparking curiosity in her students from the same Saturday school she graduated from.

You’ll catch Zahra enjoying activities that allow her to pick up on patterns, explore her creative and critical thinking, is challenging and fun. So long as she has a good book, pen, paper, food, and a good company, she’ll be satisfied.

Time Froze and So Did Our Smiles

The Cameraman sees the vintage photo strip of us,

And questions me if you are my family.

 

I pause.

Grinning from ear to ear.

As I wander and stare at the photo strip of us

Smiling, also.

Only this time, it isn’t only witnessed by the aging photo lens inside of a booth.

My smile, lasting longer too.

 

I feel the time stop for a while and

As though my life is flashing before me.

But all I’m seeing are the times we’ve spent in each other’s company.

And there are many of those moments.

 

Time stopped and the memories passed way too fast.

There I realised my hunger to meet you all again.

A dying need: sustenance to keep on living.

We are a perfect ecosystem and

I feel deprived without getting my daily doses of you.

 

I notice myself still grinning from ear to ear.

as I wander and stare at the photo strip of us.

 

The camera man waited for seconds.

That timeframe showcasing a lifetime

Of us. At least for me.

 

The camera man is still waiting

Eager to hear my response.

 

With no hesitation, I agreed proudly.

We are both satisfied and continued talking.

 

The vintage camera lens of the photobooth,

Witnessed the love, care and joy we had

from just taking a picture.

Our ecstatic expressions. Captured.

Our smiles. Frozen in time.

 

Of girls. No sisters:

From different wombs, we come together

Always marching into the foreign terrains, of life,

And now, into the arena of adulthood

Surviving, fighting through all incoming obstacles together, and

Celebrating our little wins.

 

I just hope that the camera man and his camera,

Like the aging camera lens of the photobooth,

Witness the same childish smile.

 

I hope he notices that in the moment during and after

Talking about you,

I felt more alive.

Returning to the Surface

You and I are the same.

The same being. Same Entity.

Same Person.

 

But we are also different.

We live in different times,

and we experience different lives.

And in time, we will come to play different roles.

 

It is not always do we often meet.

But when we finish our missions, and intersect with one another,

We only have gratitude to exchange.

 

‘Don’t thank me’, You’ll respond

‘I was only doing my job earnestly

 the same way you did yours’.

 

I wasn’t a corpse already then,

but by the state they would see me in

I would be pronounced dead.

Invalidating and ignoring the little life I had inside of me.

 

Battered and bruised by life’s punches.

The cuts scattered all over my body were all infected.

The open scars were windows to the illness underneath.

 

‘Where was the early diagnosis?

Where was the proper treatment to prevent all of this from happening?

Why is this happening to me?! Why does this always happen to me?!’

An echoing childish cry like the lingering vibration and noise of a tree that falls in the middle of the forest.

Rippling everywhere and only reaching the ears of human absence.

Nobody heard.

Nobody knew.

Nobody cared.

‘That’s what happens to trees anyways, right?’

 

Band-Aids were given as cover-up for the scars,

the colour of my skin, in hopes they would camouflage.

‘What an effective treatment to give if I was a nuisance’, I thought

But I was also too pained and numb to care anymore.

To do anything about it.

 

Tick tock,

tick tock.

My appointment is next week.

‘At last,’ I thought.

 

Already feeling so small in the vessel I’m in.

Miniscule now that I am placed 6 feet below.

 

This isn’t the appointment I wanted,

or was it?

‘I didn’t want this’ I thought, as the darkness no longer

 Comfort me the way they did just seconds ago.

 

 

I wasn’t ready to go.

How could I have been?

How is this the only way out? Of everything?

 

The air is thinning now.

It was difficult to breath before being down under.

I’m no stranger to it, but this time it’s different.

I want out. NOW.

 

I know this isn’t remedy, and I’m not recovering at all.

I know.

Right now, I’m just not dying,

and I fear I’m slowing getting there.

 

Of this

I know because I have felt alive before.

I felt it every time I was with them.

And I will not find them in the Land of the Dead,

For that is where they do not belong

nor is that where I can call ‘home’.

 

My lungs are fighting to keep what little oxygen

I have left in that tight box …

And then, I was teleported.

Finally, out of the restricting space, but still feeling uneasy.

 

Then and there, I realised

I was drowning.

Sinking to the bottom of the sea floor so easily.

Dragged down by the invisible weight of

Responsibilities turned into boulders of burdens

from when I was up in the surface.

Drowning did not free me from the heavy weight of it all, huh?

 

It’s getting dark here.

And the light from above is dimming rapidly.

 

Suddenly, I notice my heart … beating inconsistently,

Like a car engine that hasn’t been used since the 80s

warming up to be of use to its owner so it can hit the road once again.

 

That’s not supposed to happen,

Considering all my organs were shutting down.

No, wait … I want it to work.

I’m allowing it to be ignited anyways.

 

My heart responds and acts accordingly,

Like a car engine that hasn’t been used since the 80s

warming up to be of use to its owner and hit the road once again.

 

The only direction my body was going is down,

A broken, lifeless, sinking ship.

And I couldn’t see the bottom of the sea.

I guess I wouldn’t have; I’d be dead anyways.

But you stopped that from happening.

 

You awoke me—igniting my heart and now consciousness to operate fully,

And when I finally faced the reality of my situation -

I was scared.

I haven’t been scared for a while.

It’s been some time since I felt anything and

Now … this is not a good feeling.

 

I am now a sinking ship with passengers.

Panicking whilst fighting to survive.

Refusing to accept the defeat of death.

 

The rest of my body is still paralysed.

Still loading to activate the other parts of the machine my body is.

My mouth moved slowly. Then urgently, uttering and crying ‘HELP!’

But only in Morse Code.

Nobody picked up the signs.

Nobody heard.

Nobody knew.

Nobody cared … but you.

You understood me muted and knew exactly what to do.

 

They’d think I was raised from the dead—

Witnessing me, the unliving, trespassing a place she no longer belongs.

 

But truthfully, you’re the angel sent to take me

away from the Godforsaken place I was in,

returning me to where I’m supposed to be.

 

You extracted me with such gentleness

from the confines of the dark pit in the soil that

my body was starting to get used to, because

at least there, it was silent.

 

You pulled me out of the waters’ deadly depths just in time

For me to feel, and be

Alive … Again.

 

The air smelt and tasted different, unlike what I remembered.

‘God Dammit, that’s not important.’ I told myself.

You’re out now. You’re Free.

 

Nobody said it was going to hurt this much.

Though painful … it was a necessary procedure.

A rescue mission.

 

You did what others have failed to even try.

The stories etched on my body; I didn’t have to convince you they were real.

You saw me … you believed me … and you saved me.

 

Thanks to you, I long to be buried no more.

There will be a time for that, and until then

so long as I am still breathing, fighting, and living,

I intend to never go back.