The Spine of the World

Langtang is no trail —
it is a reckoning written in rock and wind.
There, where the air thins and gods no longer speak,
you begin to hear yourself —
not the voice shaped by society,
but the one buried beneath comfort,
grinding like stone on bone.

The mountains do not welcome.
They witness.
They stand in brutal indifference,
older than your questions,
colder than your truths.
And in that cold, something melts —
the illusion of meaning handed to you.

You walk —
past spinning prayers that touch nothing but the wind,
past faces carved by altitude and hardship,
past temples crumbling yet more eternal than any empire.

The silence there is not peace.
It is a mirror.
Each footstep becomes a philosophy,
each breath a rebellion against your smaller self.

You arrive broken,
and that is the gift.
Because in Langtang,
only what is real survives.
And the real has no name,
no doctrine,
only the echo:
Become.