Not to any god. Not to any ghost.
They call me Iyovi, and they call me godless.
And the dark sang back.
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 say a godless woman is a hollow drum. No spirit to move through her. No song. godless iyovi
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.
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. Not to any god
The Godless Testament of Iyovi