They call me Iyovi, and they call me godless.
I was seven when I first refused the evening prayer to the Sky Father. Not out of rebellion, but curiosity. I asked, “If he sees all, why does he let the river swallow children?” The elder struck me. Not for the question—for the silence that followed it. That silence, they said, was the godless seed.
The Godless Testament of Iyovi
Not to any god. Not to any ghost.
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. godless iyovi
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.
And for the first time in twenty years, I sang. They call me Iyovi, and they call me godless
Just to the dark.
