Yet I Hated You
By Tyrek Corry
It was cold. It was dark. It was lonely.
I was scared and this was not the first time I found myself scared.
I was hiding in a closet until the screaming stopped. I shielded myself. No one wanted to hear my story. They wanted my gifts, my dreams, my body, and my voice.
I tried so hard to be perfect and shed that sinful imagination created by hellbent preaching and anointing oil.
I tried and I have failed. I have failed and tried.
I have struggled to seek and know a different place. I wanted to reimagine and you stopped me. I wanted to trouble the water and you told me no. You kept telling me no! Why did you never say yes?
I sat in the pew and wrestled with the ways that God could have placed me in such a terrible history. God, you knew. I wanted to be perfect in all of my ways. I did not want to be destroyed. I wanted my dreams to catch wings, to fly.
I was battered and bruised. I was torn and betrayed. I kept hearing messages about love and it felt like pain. Honestly, it was pain.
I sat in the pulpit that Sunday. I had just sat through another argument between them and myself.
I was mad. I denied you. I cursed you.
I did not want to die but I wanted to give up. I was crumbling but they kept wanting more. All these people that were affirming my gift could not see my sadness. I guess I should blame you. Right?
I hated you. I know that is strong language. But I hated you, though.
I felt as though you left me behind. I had to search through the trash for what I believed.
I preached and I preached.
I served and I served.
I tried to hold it all together and each part crumbled to the ground. I wish I could only desire the things I can have. I wish all could be reconciled and drawn together again.
________
Tyrek Corry is a recent graduate of the Master of Divinity program at Duke Divinity School and the Master of Social Work program at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is from Gaffney, SC but has lived the last four years of his life in Durham, NC. Currently, he is a project manager for the Center for Supportive Schools in Wake Forest, NC.
Hey, up next are some Blessings.
Photo by Samuel Martins on Unsplash
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The Waking is an online literary magazine and a part of the Ruminate creative community that houses high-quality literary writing about what it’s like to be human. We are interested in short-form prose and image-text hybrid work. This art can be beautiful, it can be strange, we just ask that it feels true.
Laura
May 23, 2019
Tyrek, this is gorgeous. Thank you for writing this, especially this line: “I kept hearing messages about love and it felt like pain.” I am just now starting to reckon with the spiritual trauma of my upbringing, and those words remind me that I am not alone.
Thank you.