About Me

I'm Faust, and I write from the places most people pass through without stopping.

Currently working as a concierge in Queens, New York, I spend my days helping residents navigate their needs while my nights are devoted to translating what I witness into poetry and prose. These aren't separate lives. They're the same practice of helping people find their way through spaces that weren't originally designed for them.

I'm a Muslim American who found Islam in 2022. That conversion changed more than my prayer schedule. It gave me new eyes for reading the world around me, finding verses written in dawn light and prophecies hidden in subway announcements. The same streets that once just led me home now lead me to deeper questions about how we make meaning from ordinary moments.

My poetry collection "Crude Listeners: Verses from the Void" explores what happens when we actually pay attention to our lives instead of just surviving them. The title reflects something I've noticed: we're often terrible listeners to our own experiences, missing the profound while chasing the obvious.

I write because silence isn't neutral. In a world designed to keep us distracted, paying careful attention becomes revolutionary. Whether I'm documenting the everyday mysticism of urban life or examining how power shapes the spaces we inhabit, I'm trying to make visible what others have learned to overlook.

My work appears in various publications, but more importantly, it shows up in conversations. In workshops where people discover their perspectives matter. In community spaces where poetry becomes a tool for survival rather than just decoration for life.

Everything connects in ways that aren't immediately obvious. The Dutch masters I studied in Amsterdam museums connect to the project hallways of my youth. The call to prayer from the masjid above the Turkish restaurant connects to the work songs my grandfather hummed while building other people's dreams. The philosophy I study at midnight connects to the practical wisdom my neighbors share over morning coffee.

This isn't coincidence. It's curriculum. Life teaches the same lessons through different teachers until you learn to recognize the patterns.

Right now I'm working on essays about how travel and faith shape identity for those of us carrying multiple histories. I'm developing workshops that teach poetry as survival skill. I'm documenting the overlooked wisdom of working people who've mastered the art of finding sacred space wherever they land.

The goal isn't just personal expression, though that matters. The goal is building bridges between different kinds of knowledge, between artistic beauty and political necessity, between individual insight and collective healing.

If you're interested in this conversation, you're welcome here. Follow the work, subscribe for updates, engage with the ideas. But most importantly, start paying attention to your own life with the same care you'd give any sacred text. Write down what you notice. Trust what you see. Add your voice to the ongoing human project of figuring out how to live with dignity in challenging times.

The light falls differently on each of us, but it falls on all of us.

Queens, NY | Author of "Crude Listeners: Verses from the Void" | Available for readings, workshops, and collaborations