Iyovi | Godless

By fifteen, I had watched the priests anoint a man who sold his own niece for land. I watched them call it divine will . I walked out of the temple, and I did not look back. That was the day they carved the word into my flesh: Godless Iyovi . Not with a knife—with a whisper. And a whisper, in our tongue, cuts deeper.

They call me Iyovi, and they call me godless. godless iyovi

Not to any god. Not to any ghost.

But last night, a storm came. Lightning split the baobab where the altar once stood. And as the rain washed the ash into the earth, I heard something—not a prayer, not a command. A sound like the first breath before language. By fifteen, I had watched the priests anoint

In the village of my mothers, a name is a covenant. Iyovi —the one who walks between the rains. A child of blessing, a keeper of thresholds. But I broke the covenant long before I understood its words. That was the day they carved the word

Just to the dark.