Sarah Rostom is a first year student in the Arts and Science program (a program which accepts 60 students per year) at McMaster University. She began writing and performing poetry in 2007. Since then, her candid and eloquent work has been recognized by her peers and the larger community as being a unique commentary on diverse topics ranging from media bias to the Palestine struggle to personal growth. She is the winner of the 2008 and 2009 MIST (Muslim Inter-Scholastic Tournament) poetry competitions and the 2009 overall individual winner.          


Beneath the soles of my feet,
Are the souls of thousands of young, middle aged, and old,
And only God knows what their future holds and what their destiny’s cradle in their souls.
And beneath the soles of my feet
Is the ground. The cold, concrete pavement creeping into my soul,
Creeping in through my pores,
Seeping into my bones,
And only God knows what my future holds.
But my present is cradling guilt like a broken beer bottle,
Like a classic Stacato,
The notes fertile and pregnant with Guilt,
The danger equivalent to a sword in its hilt,
Notes conceiving tears of sweat, aggravation,
And Agitation, without contraceptives.
So Guilt is birthed in a pool of bowels and blood,
Neither a daughter nor a son,
But has become my daughter and son.
I nurture guilt within the throws of my soul,
But beneath the soles of my feet,
Are scratching finger nails and prodding palms in hypocritical deceit.
Hypocritical oaths and odes made for the Guilty.
Made for those hold Guilt within the throws of their souls.
But their finger nails rip skin off the soles of feet,
And so my feet no longer press flesh against the cold concrete.
But Guilt listens to my heartbeat, reverberating through every beat
Like a classic Stacato off-beat
But it is being led by a drunken maestro.
An intoxicated, sunken embryo
Guilt survives in the fast and up-tempo wrist action of the tipsy maestro,
An intoxicated, sunken embryo, reaping my zeal,
And dulling my shield,
But the shield of Islam never dulls only lulls in the presence of the fiend.
But they feed off me and my insecurities,
And lack-of maturity. A naive attempt to provide excuses for short-comings,
And yet that day is coming.
And it’s only a period of time before we’ll see our selves as some bodies.
And maybe we will actually grow into somebody’s.
Where a person’s worth is not weighed against a GPA but how they pray,
When they supplicate, and hold their hands to the Greatest of the Great
King of Kings and the Creator of Universe, who has written our fate,
Written our days, written our minutes and the seconds we have left to say,
All that we need to say and do to guarantee our entrance into the Garden that day,
And yet that day is coming.
Where I will be the soul beneath the soles of the thousands of young, middle-aged, and old,
Where I will be the soul beneath the soles of the thousands of wayfarers, buyers, and sold’s.
Where I will be the soul beneath the soles nurturing Guilt within the throws of their soul.
Awaiting the judgement of the one who has all Control.