These Are Your Storms Poem by Franklin M Kline

You don't get to break your own belongings
and then blame me for the wreckage.
I am not your scapegoat.
Not your emotional punching bag.
I am not your door mat.
Not your mud flap for the road you chose to drive through a hurricane that you created.

I'm tired of being sorry.
I'm not even sorry that I'm not sorry.
Because I have nothing to be sorry for.

I have not been shameful.
So I will not carry your shame.
I will not hold your regret in my hands
like it belongs to me.
I will not wear your guilt
like some secondhand jacket stitched together by your denial.

Those emotions?
They were given to you for a reason.
They are signals—
Warning lights,
Road flares.
They are there to tell you when you've crossed a line
and when something inside you needs to change.

But instead of listening,
you projected them onto me.
And that didn't just hurt me—
It hurt you more.
Because when you refuse to own your errors,
they turn into something worse.

They become mistakes.
Missed takes.
Opportunities lost
because you refused to correct the script.

You cannot be forgiven
for a sin you won't admit.
You cannot be healed
from a wound you pretend to have but never did get.

These are your storms.
These are your faults.
These are your sins.

They are not mine.
They never were.

And you condemned your own soul
when you hid yourself from your shame.
You condemned your own soul
with denial, projection, and false pride, on repeat, as if you were insane.
You condemned your own soul
when you shifted your blame.
You condemned your own soul—
and I will not stand here and watch you in pain.
I will not stand here and watch you condemn your own soul in vain.

Because these are your storms so you must deal with your rain,
just like everyone else has to because we all have our own storms to claim.
And our own side of the street to maintain.
And doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result is completely insane.

These are your storms and I am not your storm drain.