(This is an excerpt from one of my plays)

You ask me why we need prophets

Why we bend our ears toward mountaintops, toward burning bushes and thunderous clouds. Why we hush our instincts just to hear another speak with divine authority, etched in gold leaf or sanctified by centuries.

Maybe it’s not the prophet we need—maybe it’s the permission.

Permission to trust our doubts. To feel anger and still be good. To choose tenderness and still be strong. We carry this strange hunger to be told that the ache inside us isn’t a flaw but a compass. That the questions we carry in the deep hours are not blasphemy—they are the beginning of wisdom.

But why do we wait for someone else to say it?

Why not you?

You, with your trembling hands and your stubborn, resilient heart. You’ve watched dreams unravel. You’ve lost things you loved and kept going. That makes you a witness. That makes you holy.

So, maybe we’ve mistaken the prophet for the proclamation. Maybe the voice we’re waiting for is already ours, hoarse from crying in silence, worn from trying to be good in a world that measures worth in power.

Maybe we don’t need another tablet, another sermon, another rule. Maybe what we need is the courage to speak aloud what our bones already know: that to live fully is to live vulnerably, and to live vulnerably is to live truthfully.

And if you can do that—if you can live that—what need have you for prophets?

(Beat. A pause. The speaker places their hand over their chest. Quiet. Certain.)

You were always enough. 🙏🏾❤️

©️ Beatriz Esmer