by: Zahra Ali Death has forgotten my name. I. The First Ascent II. The Second Descent III. The Third Entrance In the radiance, Zahra Ali is a Pakistani-American writer and student whose work explores memory, inheritance, and the human cost of progress. Her poetry has been recognized for its lyrical precision and emotional depth. She serves as an editor for her school’s literary magazine and has participated in regional writing competitions such as the annual write-on competition which shes won 2nd place for 3 consecutive years. Outside of writing, she is passionate about cultural history, language, and social justice. Zahra hopes to continue using poetry as a tool for remembrance and resistance.
Heaven in the Abstract
Not by mercy, nor miracle,
but by the cruel mathematics
of memory and time.
I trespassed heaven’s gates three times—
not by the grace of gods.
And I can assure you now:
we are damned—
not in flame,
but in abstraction.
The sky cracked open like a secret.
I entered—not with wings,
but with wounds that whispered.
I climbed into the blue ache of existence
to confront the man who undid my life—
a figure carved from silence and sorrow.
But no hand defines the unknown.
Only absence endures,
echoing through eternal halls.
And when I found him,
he said nothing.
Instead, an arrow—
precise, brutal, necessary—
lodged in my chest.
It did not end me.
It flung me downward into understanding:
not a fall,
but a redirection.
A return to redefine the world
in the shape of my wound.
Heaven again,
but now with stairs—
not rising, but circling.
Each step reopens old punctures.
My chest is a map of forgotten lessons.
I ascend.
But the only knowledge granted is this:
a word has more meanings
than men have souls to grasp.
And angels—keepers of one truth—
crown only a single meaning.
All else is heresy.
Life fractures on contact with thought.
The final time, I crossed no threshold—
the gates dissolved.
He is there,
or rather, something in His place.
Blinding.
My eyes implode,
my form ruptures.
I become less than flesh,
more than memory.
I see everything and nothing:
a throne unoccupied,
a massacre repeated in metaphor,
people mourned only in allegory.
History forgets what language excludes.
Still, I ask:
How many deaths to give a word its one true meaning?
A voice—felt, not heard—answers:
“You did not ascend.
You awoke inside the idea of heaven,
and found it hollow.”About the Author
