The first wound was not made by steel

It was carved by the promise

That tomorrow would finally explain today

I walked for centuries inside a single afternoon

Mountains learned my name

Yet my own tongue could no longer pronounce it

Tell me who placed a heartbeat

Inside a creature destined to question the silence

Who scattered desire through veins

That could never embrace eternity

The elder gods remained seated

Not upon thrones, upon the weight of every unanswered prayer

Their faces were hidden

Not by darkness, but by the unbearable brightness

Of knowing everything and answering nothing

I offered them my years

They counted them like grains of forgotten salt

Slipping between immortal fingers

I offered them my face

They returned it without fingerprints

Perhaps the labyrinth was never built to imprison us

Perhaps it exists only to teach

That every exit resembles another entrance

I have swallowed seasons

I have buried versions

Whose names I no longer deserve to remember

Still, still some invisible