Title: Ride Out The Storm Poem by ashok jadhav

(The speaker stands alone, coat soaked, hair wind-torn. Thunder rolls in the distance. A long pause before the voice rises—steady, wounded, unbroken.)
I did not choose the storm.
No one ever does.
It arrived without permission,
without warning,
like truth often does—
loud, unkind, and impossible to ignore.
One moment the sky was familiar,
clouds drifting like harmless thoughts,
and the next—
the horizon darkened,
the wind sharpened its teeth,
and the rain began to fall
as if the heavens had decided
to test the weight of my spine.
I searched for shelter.
Of course I did.
I ran to old beliefs,
to promises once spoken with confidence,
to hands that swore they would never let go.
But storms have a way
of exposing weak roofs and borrowed courage.
Walls I trusted collapsed into excuses.
Doors I knocked on
answered with silence.
So there I stood—
bare against the weather of my own life,
asking the ancient, foolish question:
"Why me? "
Why this loss?
Why this delay?
Why this ache that settles in the bones
and refuses to move on?
The storm did not answer.
It never does.
It only roared louder.
Days blurred into nights.
The rain became routine.
Thunder turned into a familiar voice,
and fear—
fear became a companion I did not invite
but learned to live with.
I wanted escape.
I wanted shortcuts through suffering.
I wanted miracles that arrived on schedule.
But the storm taught me a cruel, honest lesson:
some trials cannot be outrun,
some pain cannot be argued with,
and some seasons demand
not strength,
but endurance.
So I stopped running.
I planted my feet into the mud of uncertainty.
I lowered my head—not in defeat,
but in patience.
I told my shaking heart,
"Stay. Breathe. Hold."
To ride out the storm
is not to deny the thunder.
It is to listen to it without surrender.
It is to feel the rain soak your skin
and still refuse to dissolve.
It is to understand
that survival is sometimes the bravest rebellion.
I learned to count time differently.
Not by victories,
but by mornings I still rose.
Not by applause,
but by the quiet fact
that I remained.
There were moments—
oh, there were moments—
when hope felt like a foolish luxury.
When patience tasted like bitterness.
When every prayer echoed back unanswered.
But even then,
something within me whispered:
"Storms do not last forever.
They test, they break, they pass."
And slowly—
so slowly it almost felt imagined—
the wind lost its fury.
The thunder learned restraint.
The rain softened into memory.
I looked at myself then—
mud-stained, scarred,
but standing.
I was not the same person
who first faced the darkened sky.
That version of me begged for rescue.
This one understood resilience.
That version demanded explanations.
This one carried wisdom in silence.
The storm took much from me—
comfort, certainty, illusions.
But it gave me something greater:
the knowledge that I can endure
without becoming cruel,
that I can wait without growing empty,
that I can suffer
and still keep my soul intact.
So if you see me standing quietly now,
do not mistake my calm for weakness.
I have ridden out storms
that tried to erase my name.
I have learned that patience
is not passive—
it is powerful.
Let the clouds gather again if they must.
I know the sky's temper now.
I know my own strength better.
I will ride out the storm—
not because I am fearless,
but because I have learned
that surviving the storm
is how we discover
who we truly are.