They tried to tell me what holiness looked like. Quiet. Polite. Patient. Kneeling in pews, folding hands neatly, smiling when the world spits on you. Saints, they said, are remembered for their silence, for their restraint, for the way they bled without complaint.
But I’ve never been good at swallowing my fire.
The truth is, the world I grew up in wasn’t holy. It wasn’t painted in gold or cushioned in hymns. It was grit under the nails, blood on the knuckles, lies whispered sweet enough to rot your teeth. I learned early that smiles don’t mean safety, and promises break faster than glass bottles.
Men’s words are fog. Soft. Sweet. Thick enough to blind you until it’s too late. And I was tired of choking on it. That’s why I reached for steel. Because steel cuts through fog. Steel tells the truth.
I didn’t pick up the sword to look strong. I didn’t pick it up to be feared. I picked it up because nothing else was real anymore. Words failed me, prayers drowned in silence, mercy felt like a joke no one laughed at. But the hiss of metal, the weight of it in my hands—that was something I could trust.
So no, I don’t kneel. I don’t fold my fire into something softer just to make others comfortable. My breath burns like smoke. My chest is a furnace, alive with anger and resolve. Every scar on my body is a record, every wound a line in a story that says: I survived. Not clean. Not saintly. But alive.
And alive is enough.
Here’s the thing: sainthood is just another word for chains. Chains polished until they shine, draped in holy words so you don’t realize you’re trapped. Be good. Be pure. Be forgiving. Be silent. All the while, you rot inside. That was never for me. I was not carved to fit inside a cage. I was made for storms. And storms do not kneel.
People call me dangerous. They call me sinner. They say I’ve gone too far, that my hands are dirty, that I should be ashamed. But shame is another kind of cage, and I threw that key away a long time ago.
While saints polish their halos, I stand in the dust. My sword is scarred, but it remembers how to cut. And when the world breaks—and it always does—it won’t be the saints who come down from their marble thrones to save it.
It’ll be the ones who bleed. The ones who fight in the dirt. The ones who whisper His name through broken teeth, with blood still hot on their lips.
That’s who I am. Not chosen. Not holy. Just the storm you thought you had tamed. The blade you left to rust, now sharpened by rage.
And if that path is sin, then sin is the only prayer I’ll ever know.
For You
Stop waiting until you’re spotless. Stop waiting until you’ve earned permission to fight. That day doesn’t come. And if it did, the world would find a new way to dirty you.
Don’t kneel to cages dressed as virtue. Don’t waste your fire just to look good in someone else’s story.
Because this world doesn’t need saints.
It needs storms. It needs people unafraid to bleed, unafraid to stand with scars wide open, unafraid to burn if that’s what survival demands.
And if you are reading this with fire in your chest, trembling hands, and the ache of scars you wish you could hide—remember: you don’t have to be holy. You just have to be alive.
Alive is enough.
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