They say a chef is only as good as his tools.

His knives. His pans. His vessels.

You rely on them to carry the flame, contain the heat, and deliver something pure from chaos. But even the finest vessel, Reverend… breaks. 

A crack too small to see becomes a weakness too wide to bear. And once it gives?

It doesn’t pour.

It leaks.

That’s what you are, Ezekiel Graves. Not a man. Not a monster. A vessel. That’s the story, isn’t it? 

That you were spared by God to deliver his judgment. That the fury burning behind your eyes doesn’t belong to you—that it’s borrowed. That your hands, your voice, your violence… are just extensions of some higher will.

It comforts you, doesn’t it? To believe the rage you carry isn’t yours. That the ruin you leave behind is holy.

But I know a cracked vessel when I see one.

You see, when a pot cracks, it doesn’t warn you. It just fails. Slowly, quietly, dangerously. The dish still simmers. The aroma still rises, but something’s wrong. A strange taste. A bitter note. A drip of metal in the broth. 

Because what once held purpose now bleeds dysfunction. 

And you, Reverend, are bleeding.

You think it’s divine justice seeping from your soul. But it’s rust. Trauma. Guilt. All the parts of your past you’ve boiled too long and buried too deep, now leeching back into every match, every sermon, every so called act of retribution.

You’re not a vessel chosen by God.

You’re a fractured one, shaped by anguish and held together by dogma.

And the more you preach, the more you pour that bitterness into others. You think you’re baptizing sinners in fire, but all you’re doing is staining everything you touch.

You could’ve healed, Ezekiel. You could’ve used that vessel to carry something real. Something warm. Something human. But you didn’t want peace. You wanted purpose. 

You wanted to believe that all your suffering could be justified if you wore it like a collar and turned pain into ritual.

But there is no recipe that redeems that choice.

No fire hot enough to weld the damage you deny.

You hid behind the pulpit, behind the robes, behind the cross—because if you ever stood bare in front of your own reflection, you’d have to admit that the only voice you’ve ever truly heard is your own, echoing in a hollow pot, desperate to sound divine.

And that’s where I come in, Reverend. 

Not to shatter you. 

But to expose the leak. 

To lift your lid, smell what you’ve been simmering, and show the world that there’s nothing holy inside. Just bitterness. Just bile. Just the last fumes of a man who mistook his own rot for righteousness.

I don’t need a calling. I don’t need a mission.

I just need one plate.

And when I serve you, you won’t taste judgment. You’ll taste failure. The acrid flavor of a vessel that was never whole, never sacred, never chosen.

Just cracked.

Loud.

And finally, empty.