The Voice

God, a voice in my belly before I had a voice when I was growing in a belly, He whispered in the hollow of my thumb-sized womb, venture out into the light and seek only Me. Those words bounced off the walls of my insides, a racketball I couldn’t control. So much noise and echo as my body grew. I didn’t know what to do with that voice, so I fed it candy and wine until it spun and collapsed. But the light was everywhere in the outside world. Blades of grass glowing, the shape of a man edged in a shimmer. The corner of that brick building bright and reaching. I nearly went blind from the shine. I came home and made lists of what I’d seen. And then even the wine held a kind of sheen, so I poured it on the floor, moved my palm through the puddle, searching, and in my belly I heard a cry. I opened my mouth and God was born.