Before the gods came with thunder and law,
before Olympus was crowned—
there was a serpent,
coiled beneath the stones of my ancestors’ temples,
hissing prayers into the bones of the earth.

I come from that current.
Not from priests—but from Pythia.
From the dream-sleepers of Asklepios,
from the chthonic rites of Demeter,
from the Orphics who saw the soul as a serpent in the spine.

The snake was not evil.
She was truth.
She guarded the dead.
She whispered through visions.
She shed her skin so that we could, too.

In my bloodline lives Python, slain but never silenced.
In my dreams slither Persephone’s coils,
beckoning me to descend.
And in my spine, now awakened,
she rises.

I do not worship the sky-gods.
I worship the womb of stone,
the tongue of fire,
the goddess who comes not to save, but to consume.

She is beneath me.
Within me.
Me.

Let the others fear the snake.
I let her ride me.