It’s ok (A poem of healing religious trauma)
I wrote this poem several years ago. I had spent months slogging through session after session with my therapist trying to make peace with my childhood. Really, I was trying to finally believe that it was alright to be queer.
I was trying to overcome all those years of programming that I was defective. Broken. Unworthy of love.
I had spent my entire youth rebelling against those ideas, but deep inside, I had accepted them as true.
One day in therapy, we finished a round of EMDR, and for the first time, instead of bowing my head and crying, instead of feeling shame, I lifted my chin, looked my therapist in the eyes and said, “I am proud of who I am.”
I did start crying then, of course. But those were tears of breakthrough.
A short time later, I had another final impactful moment of acceptance, of claiming myself, of seeing myself. That was in a men’s fitting room, but that’s a story for another time. All of those milestones are captured in the poem along with some from the years between when I first came out to my best friend when I was 16 and that moment in my therapist’s office.
When I read the poem now, with the space of several years between now me and the version of me who wrote it in 2020, I know that many of the religious references won’t mean anything (or will maybe even be confusing) for some people who have never experienced anything similar.
My hope is that there will be a person who reads this, someone with adjacent experiences who has maybe never feel seen, and that person will read those words and feel them in their marrow. And they will feel not alone for just one moment. And I hope they too will reach a point where they know, it’s ok.
It’s ok (A poem of healing religious trauma)
When you finally say those six scary words
Quietly, out Loud
To your best friend
As you lie on your back
In the dark,
Your fear is a presence
“I think I might be gay”
I want to wrap you in my love
Give to you
The strength of my heart
And say,
“It’s ok”
When you’re terrified of losing your family,
Friends and Life
And the sentencing of your Soul
To eternal hell
Makes you cut your own skin
To feel a separate, easier pain,
As a way to face your fears
I want to pull you behind me
Protect your heart
As a bear guards her cubs
And say,
“It’s ok”
When you slosh through the dregs
Of your Religion
Feeling the power of your Faith,
Once unshakeable,
Slip from your grasp
Because you can’t, no, you won’t, lie
About your basic truth
I want to take your trembling hands in mine
Pass to you
The peace of my soul
And simply say,
“Valiant girl, it’s ok”
When you search for a loophole
In the Damnation
Laid out in one verse after another
But find judgment
Instead of Grace
And always more questions
Even the ministers cannot seem to answer
I want to look deep into your clear blue eyes
Cry for you
The tears of absolution
And say,
“Brave seeker, it’s ok”
When you turn to other sources of wisdom
Searching for Peace
Blazing your own beautiful path
To unshakeable truth
And you find solid ground
Among the trees and the poets
Amid the philosophers and stars
I want to lie next to you on the warm summer ground
In the dark
Crying in awe at the grandeur of the universe
And, soft as a whisper, say,
“See? It’s ok”
When you stand your own ground, fast and firm
In your Truth
And you won’t back down
Or accept an inferior brand of love
The scarlet sound of
“I love you anyway”
Because you don’t need Forgiveness for being yourself
I want to cheer for you
Scream myself hoarse
Praising your fierceness, bravery and courage
And say,
“That’s it! It’s ok.”
When you sit with a counselor digging still to
Find your Worth
Leaning into the pain
In search of freedom
From a lifetime of doubt and shame
And you finally say those words, out loud,
“I’m proud of who I am”
I want to sing with a choir of angels
“It is well,
It is well with my soul”
And hear you say,
“I’m ok”
When you look in the mirror on a
Fitting room Wall
And see yourself, Whole
And feel compassion and love
Replacing all the doubt and the shame
And you gently say those words, out loud
Affirming my worth, “I see you”
I want to wrap myself in your love
Finally feel warmth
That heals my broken heart
And I’ll say,
“I’m ok”
Print a copy: It’s ok (A poem of healing religious trauma) by Brenn Lambert.
