Growing up watching Monster Inc. I feared closing my closet because my crazy imagination would scare me thinking that if I open it there would be a monster inside it. But remembering the fantasy Narnia, my guts would tell me to believe that behind that door of my closet lies a world filled with beauty and magic.
When I saw this hole, I wanted to believe that it will lead me to another world, a world without pain and suffering, a world with bright colors and peace, a world that is fair, a world without hate but no matter how I keep on believing just to ease the pain, later on I will look around and then realities come back.
A passage hole in our precious Tuca Lilod Masjed leading directly to the compound of Grandparents, such disrespect! A holy structure yet it was disrupted like this! It took blood and sweat of all our forefathers just to build this Masjed yet other people did not value it.
I wanna believe that I accidentally moved my closet and found this behind it, I wanna believe that I will see a paradise if I go through it, but a devastating sight of a war-ravaged home is what I will see through that hole. I can choose to stay in this side where I currently stand but when I look around I will see nothing but a mosque that was disrespected and destroyed.
Everywhere I turn, anger would wanna blow-up to the point that I can’t even choose what word I would say. The next thing I will see is a watery vision of everything and then my tears are taking over again.
I just wonder, will these tears ever stop?
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Khayriyyah Faykha Alonto Ala, 17, is a Grade 12 student at the Mindanao State University Senior High School in Marawi City. Permission granted to MindaNews to share this piece she posted on her FB page on 01 May 2018, a day after visiting their home during the Kambisita sa Marawi. Ala, who is among thousands of Marawi residents displaced by the five-month siege last year, wants to pursue Human Resource Management in college).
