The air tonight tastes like iron and rain. The city’s holding its breath, waiting for something it doesn’t want to name. I sit here with the candle trembling beside me, pretending that ink can hold back the flood. The page stares back like a witness—unblinking, patient, cruel. Every word I write feels like a bargain with a God I stopped believing in years ago.
They say storms cleanse, but that’s a lie. Storms expose. They strip away the comfort of pretending, leave you naked in the wreckage of your own choices. I used to think redemption was a door you could walk through. Now I know it’s a labyrinth, and every turn leads back to the same room—the one where I first learned how to sin.
My father used to tell me a man’s worth was measured by how long he could keep his secrets. I kept mine too well. I buried them so deep they started to grow roots, twisting through every lie I told to keep our name clean. But the roots are breaking through the surface now, and no amount of dirt can cover what’s coming.
The storm isn’t out there. It’s in here—behind my ribs, inside every breath I take. I can feel it building, a pressure that has nothing to do with weather. It’s memory. It’s guilt. It’s the sound of my brother’s voice, the one I can’t erase.
So I write. Not to confess, not to heal. Just to remember that I was here when the first thunder rolled. That once, before everything burned, I tried to speak the truth.
— Moses C.
