Grief Inexpressible: A Friday Night Exile

They love what you write until you don't fit their perfect sketch. This piece poured out of me on a Friday night, watching a community gather while sitting on the outside looking in. It’s a raw look at cultural shunning, unearned guilt, and that haunting question: was the warmth they gave me real, or just a beautiful lie? For every fellow rascal who has had to carry a heavy cross alone—grab a seat, this one is for you.

Friday night returned,

A crowd gathering to pray.

I knew I was not welcome—

Not allowed... 

Yet I could not resist the window,

Watching children play beneath the lights.

The only night the lawn lost its sanctity,

And innocent feet could press the manicured green. 

A hollow space in my chest kept me awake.

I waited for the courtyard to clear

Before venturing down from my hostel room,

Guarding a sorrow heavier than I could bear. 

Hours earlier, a professor’s sketch had portrayed

A forsaken Christ, enduring the shame of the cross.

The dam inside me finally broke;

The factory of tears could no longer hold its production.

As I fought for control, the pressure gave way,

A silent flood spilling onto my open page.

I tried to clear the mist with a handkerchief,

But the ink had already bled—

Spreading across the paper in the perfect shape of a cross. 

To be branded the black sheep,

Blameless yet broken by their judgment,

Is a sentence harder to endure than death.

In my culture, to be ignored is to be erased. 

I felt a grief, inexpressible.

It was never the bread I hungered for,

But the radiant smiles of those who once loved my words.

In a matter of days, the world I built was gone. 

Was the smile that lurked behind it all lying,

Or merely lying low?

I still don't know.

I still don't know.

Written from the heart, with a little help from my AI sounding board to bring the rhythm to light. Until next time, stay authentic, fellow rascals.