Poem: Myth of Profit

We were not always strangers to the sacred.

Once, we spoke in firelight,

walked barefoot where our ancestors dreamed,

traded stories like seeds,

knowing they would take root in another’s breath.

Once, we did not measure each other in wages,

did not count the hours like coins,

did not look at a human body

and see labor before life.

But a spell was cast.

It was not written in blood,

nor whispered in the wind—

no, it was built with spectacle.

A tent was raised,

a grand circus of progress,

where the greatest trick of all

was to make us forget

we were ever free.

Inside, they dressed us in masks

woven from scarcity, fear, and time.

The Ringmaster—white-faced, well-dressed—

taught us to perform.

Jump through the hoops of industry.

Balance the weight of your worth in productivity.

Grin through exhaustion,

make yourself small enough to fit the stage.

And when we tired,

when the fire in our bellies dimmed,

they tossed us crumbs of leisure,

told us to clap for the ones who had it worse.

"Look at them. Look at you. You should be grateful."

And so we danced.

And so we bowed.

And so we made ourselves utility,

believing that to be useful

was the closest thing to being seen.

But I have seen the cracks in the illusion.

I have heard the wind whisper a different name.

I have watched the flames flicker beneath the stage.

Kali’s blade is not far.

Ra’s eye is wide open.

The earth, long patient,

is pulling back her breath.

Do you hear it?

The spell is thinning.

The curtain is fraying.

The audience is no longer laughing.

Somewhere beyond the circus,

beyond the neon glow of the marketplace,

the old stories are waking—

the ones that remind us

we were never meant to be consumed,

never meant to be tamed,

never meant to live in a world

where bodies are profit and love is transaction.

Somewhere beyond the noise,

there is a place where names are sacred,

where hands hold without taking,

where we sit by the fire once more

and remember that we, too,

are mythic.