"When It Rains" by Dominique Ficklin

My rut is safe for me to live,
so now I'm afraid to leave.

I know every corner,
every cranny,
and any byways
one might take to get there.

My shame is written on these mud walls.
The reason I'm here haunts me
at every turn of my head.

Waiting so long,
knowing you’d never return.
I was the leader,
the one they looked up to,
the one who made the right decisions.

I still find comfort
in these shameful things
because
I know them,
and they're all I know.
To climb out
Would be an admission
of shame.

I fear that God would laugh at me,
an "I told you so"
ringing clearer in my head
than ever before.

Instead,
I found,
when forced to climb out,
I cried

And He cried, too.