today’s word.

the narrator.

i learned early that holiness had a smell. not incense. money, the dough. new leather seats. cold air-conditioning blowing over warm hunger. i learned early that god lived upstairs and the poor were expected to wait outside quietly, like children told not to interrupt adult conversations.

i walk through my city and it feels like a church pretending to be a country. altars on every street. microphones louder than consciences. hope sold in wholesale, faith retailed in fear. everywhere i turn, a man is promising heaven with one hand while checking profit margins with the other.

i am not clean. let me say that first. i have clapped for lies when truth felt inconvenient. i have bowed my head in reverence of pleasure, i have bowed in exhaustion. i have swallowed bullshit because it came wrapped in scripture and rhythm. so when i speak, i am not throwing stones from outside the house. i am screaming from inside the kitchen while the building burns.

everybody is a hypocrite. i say this not as an insult but a diagnosis.

we wake up rehearsing goodness like actors who know the audience is watching. we perform kindness, humility, righteousness. then the curtains close and we return to ourselves, greedy, afraid, brutal when no one is counting. saints in daylight, devils in private, and still we wonder why the world feels cursed.

i have seen pastors rise like monuments while their people sink like forgotten prayers. sanctuaries expanding while stomachs shrink. miracles announced with budgets bigger than hospitals. men of god guarded like politicians, holiness now requiring armed protection from the very people it exploits.

they say give everything and you won’t stay poor. they don’t tell you poverty is necessary for the promise to work. they say faith feeds thousands with one loaf. they don’t tell you who owns the bakery, who starves for the sermon, who claps until their hands hurt because hunger has no applause.

and we fall for it. again and again. because desperation makes gullible disciples. because hope, when cornered, will kneel before anything that speaks confidently.

i am guilty too. i have prayed for miracles instead of justice. i have asked god to fix what courage could have confronted. i have chosen comfort over truth and called it wisdom. i have been religious when it was convenient and silent when it was necessary.

we shout morality at people’s bedrooms while ignoring blood on our streets. we crucify who people love while protecting who people harm. we scream holiness with mouths that lie, hands that steal, hearts that enjoy power too much to release it.

christian and corrupt share the same body here. muslim and dishonest share the same breath. politicians pray publicly and loot privately. voters recycle thieves and complain about robbery. we hate the system but feed it with our cowardice.

and still, we act surprised.

i have watched men condemn sin from pulpits built with sin. watched prophets perform innocence while hiding rot behind robes. watched religion become a drug, not to heal pain, but to numb it, to keep people compliant, quiet, grateful for crumbs.

we shout hallelujah to drown out guilt. we dance to avoid responsibility. we kill messengers because the message requires us to change. we prefer sweet lies to bitter truth because bitterness demands effort.

do you see how grim this life is. not poetic, grim. it’s not tragic in a noble way. but slow, dull, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short, and exhausting. a life where integrity feels expensive and corruption feels efficient. a life where surviving requires becoming smaller, quieter, less honest.

and still, i speak. not because i am better, but because i am tired of pretending i am not part of the problem. because i think self-awareness is the only thing that separates critique from noise. because almost does not claim purity, but claims sight.

i crucify myself too. for every time i benefited from the system i despise. for every time i stayed silent to stay safe. for every prayer i used as an excuse not to act. nails through my own hands before i point at anyone else.

but hear this tho, being human is not an excuse for being wicked. weakness is not permission for exploitation. faith is not a license to farm suffering. god is not your business partner.

if my words make you uncomfortable, good. discomfort is the beginning of honesty. and if you feel exposed, it’s because you recognize yourself. i do too.

and this is not rebellion for applause. this is my refusal to clap at funerals disguised as revivals. this is a man standing in the middle of the mess saying “we cannot keep calling this normal and expect salvation.”

everybody is a hypocrite mehn. but some of us are trying to bleed truth instead of lies. some of us are choosing to look at the wound instead of decorating it. and some of us still believe faith should free people, not feed on them, and that’s okay.

i am not a saint. i am not innocent. i am almost.

and i think almost is enough to tell the truth.