they called her a saint because she endured. no one noticed that endurance and devotion are not the same thing. each summer, the cicadas returned to her. they gathered where her skin had begun to split, where old wounds opened like flowers after rain. the villagers believed the insects came to worship her. they lit candles. they whispered prayers. they left offerings at her feet. but the cicadas were never praying. they were listening. inside her chest lived a hunger older than faith. a quiet thing. a patient thing. it waited beneath hymns and beneath promises, beneath every beautiful lie people told themselves to survive. when her body finally cracked open, the cicadas sang. not in mourning. in recognition. because they knew what the others never did: she had never been a saint. she was the wound heaven kept returning to.