No One Remains to Condemn You

The house is quiet now, but your mind is loud with the speech you are rehearsing. You are practicing the words for a crime no one else knows you committed, a secret that feels like it is taking up all the air in the room.

You imagine the moment you finally say it out loud, terrified that the light will finally see what you have done. But the light has seen it all along.

It saw the moment it happened. It saw the shame you swallowed.

And it did not look away. There was a woman once, caught in the very act, dragged into the center of a crowd to be judged by everyone.

The accusers threw their stones and walked away until only she and the light remained. He did not ask for a list of her failures.

He did not ask for a rehearsed confession. He simply asked where they went.

When she said no one remained to condemn her, he said: neither do I. Go.

The darkness you are hiding in is not a place the light cannot enter. It is the very place it is waiting for you.

You do not have to bring the speech. You only have to stop running from the one who already knows.