Between Heartbeats

I feel my heartbeat.

Tirelessly, it sustains my life.

And it never ceases to amaze me.

I listen.

Boom, boom … boom, boom.

I am alive.

And I wonder.

If the heartbeat is life, is silence in my chest death?

Boom … I am alive. Blood courses through my veins. Thought fills my mind.

Boom … twice it pounds from within the halls of my ribcage, like a lion’s roar echoing through a cave.

Then time stops, the echo fades.

And for a moment, I live not by breath and blood but by faith.

Faith that the silence will not last.

Faith that the lion’s roar will soon fill the caverns of my chest once again.

But is this truly faith?

Is it faith if there is not even just a hint of doubt – if there is not at least one drop of blood wondering if it may never see its home again after departing on its great journey.

Are faith and doubt not intricately intertwined?

Is it not so that the absence of doubt is naiveté, while it is the overcoming of it that is faith?

Sometimes … no, too often, I take each breath for granted.

Too often, I live not by faith but by naiveté, expecting my heart to beat again instead of accepting it as a gift – as life bestowed upon me anew, pulsating, moving.

And so, in between my heartbeats, I die a bit.

Not because my chest is silent but because I choose naiveté over faith, ignoring my doubt instead of overcoming it.

And then, boom … it returns.

Boom … I am alive.

Again.

'Just looking at a wall'