What the Gods Said

They will ask you:

When did the gods speak?

You will remember the mountains,
the old stories,
the temples where people waited.

And you will say:

They did not speak.

The hills were silent.
The sky remained empty.

I walked for years expecting an answer.

None came.

But something else began.

In the dark—
not outside me
but inside.

A voice formed slowly,
as a flame forms
when the wind stops fighting it.

It rose from need.
From the pressure of grief.

At first I thought
it must belong to them.

Later I understood:

the gods were only shapes
I placed around that voice.

I made them from longing,
from fear,
from the human wish
that someone was listening.

But the voice itself—

the one that finally spoke—

was mine.