Journey to Paradise

 It was on a Tuesday,

I told my mother,

“I need to travel in spirit.

Do not interrupt me

While I lie for a while.”

With my shirt drawn over my face,

I sank into the deep.

Then-

A thought came tumbling in my head:

Is there truly heaven and hell?

As a student of literature,

I began to think in theories-

Maybe these words are symbols:

Not fire, not flames,

But pleasure and pain.

Perhaps paradise is simply joy-

A place where we live like angels.

Then I turned practical:

Am I fit to transcend

Into such an angelic life?

Do I bear the fruits of the Spirit?

Am I gentle… meek…?

The question lingered,

For an adage says:

“We know the afternoon

From the morning.”

Then I awoke.

And I remembered the side

I once doubted-

The book of Revelation:

God judging both young and old,

Casting souls into the lake of fire.

That vision shook my thoughts,

For I believe

That what is shown to men-

To prophets, to people—

Still speaks,

Even now.

And in that moment,

Silence gripped my soul.

No theory could save me,

No logic could hide me-

For if paradise is real,

Then so is the path to it.

I rose from where I lay,

Not as one who had seen heaven,

But as one who had seen himself.

For the journey to paradise

Is not traveled in sleep,

Nor found in distant clouds-

It begins in the quiet war within.

And if there is a gate to glory,

It will not open for questions alone,

But for a life that answers them.

So I walk now-awake,

With trembling faith and searching heart,

Hoping that when my final Tuesday comes,

I will not ask again…

But arrive.