Because sometimes you don’t come home clean—
you come home cussing.
I didn’t crawl back with a broken spirit.
I kicked the door open with mud still on my boots
and rage still in my throat.
This isn’t a story about shame.
It’s a story about testing the damn grace they said would be there.
I didn’t come back to be forgiven.
I came back to see if they meant it.
✝️ The Prodigal Rewritten
I wasn’t “lost.”
I was done pretending I was welcome in a place
that only loved me clean.
I didn’t waste my inheritance on wild living.
I spent my dignity trying to survive in a system
that confused silence with submission
and obedience with holiness.
When I finally left,
I didn’t go seeking sin.
I went looking for a version of God
who didn’t ask me to disappear
to be loved.
🧠 Psychological + Spiritual Insight:
- The prodigal narrative is often used to romanticize return.
But for survivors, coming back isn’t soft. It’s strategic. It’s cautious. - Forgiveness without accountability feels like performance.
If I’m not allowed to show up angry, I’m not safe—I’m staged. - Religious trauma survivors don’t want pity.
We want truth that holds us, even when we’re still raw.
🩸 What Coming Home Really Looked Like
I came home with scars,
not because I believed they’d welcome me—
but because I needed to know
if the ones preaching grace
could actually live it.
I brought my questions.
My cussing.
My coping mechanisms.
My full, unapologetic self—
just to see what would happen
when I stopped apologizing for existing.
💥 For Every Prodigal Who Didn’t Come Back Clean
This is for:
- The daughters who weren’t greeted with a feast—but with side-eyes
- The queers, the addicts, the loud girls, the angry ones
- The ones who didn’t “repent”—but still had the courage to return
- The ones who didn’t come back to be saved
but to see if anyone was worth being saved by