I Was

By ChrisJenya

I was 8

When I tried to restrict tears, it was a Sunday, and as usual, I was dressed in simplicity and sat next to my favorite person. Mary Auntie, both powerful through Christ and blessed with outstanding wisdom, stood next to me as tears freely flowed. I had felt the Holy Spirit like a bright light, a small sliver of a line connecting the-maybe 20 of us. It was like greeting a friend I had yet to name. I still felt moved and fell into a warm sort of comforting embrace. Even after worship, tears came down as I quickly smudged them with my wrist. I remember walking down from the chairs later, trying to wipe the tears and hide my red, buggy eyes. We were headed to Sunday class when a classmate of mine looked at me and said, “You look ugly when you cry”. The first weight danced on my shoulders.

I was 9

When I sat in a room with 3 others, Sisters, in some warped sense, all gathered in front of a computer screen. I’d rather have gone downstairs to my basement and played ping pong with Jae. But I stayed as I always did when Shai was there. Shai, beautiful, smart, and the oldest of us. It started with a small curiosity, but as always, if I dive, you dive. An innocent search, ‘what is kissing?’ diverged too, ‘What is French kissing?’ as we fell into a series of videos, and naked strangers. I still remember the uncomfortablity, the proximity. I wanted to run. The second weight; balanced on my shoulder with grace.

I was 10

When I found out my father was a slaughterer and my mother was a bruised goat. Marriage isn't perfect; it doesn't color in the lines. It bleeds through pages. It stains the sheets beyond. If you do not place a board to block the dye, it poisons the beautiful inked black and white images on the pages beneath. Marriage isn’t accepting. It’s learning, it’s growing, it's understanding, it's talking. It's not shouting, it's not bad-mouthing, it's not accusing, it's not holding on. The third seemed like small pebbles in a basket, until it built up, marking beautifully across my neck and back.

I was 11

When I wanted to die. It was those late prayers that I will always remember. Kneeling, or clutching my sheets for dear life as I implored, pleaded to God that I wouldn’t feel the sunrise tomorrow. It was also that early January when I found myself breaking at church. The weight was getting heavier, and my shoulders were sagging. I had found my face in my hands as tears screeched their way down my face. They clawed out of my eyes like prisoners as dozens prayed around. They prayed for healing, for Visas, for peace. I prayed for my own death. Peaceful or not, it didn't matter. The fourth weight seemed to find its way to my eyes.

I was 12

When I had to piece myself back together, sew my ripped heart a dozen times. I was not offered comfort; I was only offered ears stuffed with cotton. And though I did get help, I suffered in silence. It was an understanding from the first time I let my heart spill on the floor. Its stains were wiped away on the velvet bean bag, the realization of the dart at my throat. I suffered in silence because when I was loud, darkness was what wrapped its hands around my bony waist and pouchy stomach. Darkness was what missed my tears and raked my hair. It didn’t say anything, and I never felt its hands. Its presence, though, weighed like a thousand shackles tied to my hips. This was the fifth weight that dug like roots into my skin and burst out in bloody seams of river gravel.

I was 13 

When I truly learnt the meaning of hating someone. My grandfather has just passed, may his soul rest in peace, and my mother traveled almost a third of the globe. She was mourning and crying, and it was days before my brother's birthday. He wasn't turning double digits, or teens, he was turning 9. Yet, my father cut a cake that was almost a foot and a half in length and three feet in width. It was chocolate and decorated beautifully. I didn’t get it at that time, until my mother brought it up two years later. I felt the small raindrop stone tie itself to my brain. It wondered why it never grasped why her father was smiling, days after his father-in-law's passing. The stones pulled the brain down. Her eyes seemed to sag.

I was 14

When I felt stable. Stable enough to live, to be. Stable enough. The stones still weigh heavily. Talking in my ears from my shoulders. Dragging drowsiness from my brain. My back is straight, and my neck holds my head high, from the pebbles still crawling in beautiful designs. My eyes sank in, and black bags formed; the rubble dangled behind. My thighs have stopped the river gravel; the silt is just buried in skin, forming scabs over the wounded cuts. There are rocks on my knuckles now, making it difficult to write. I want to write. Want to spill words from thin fingers and out. 

I am 15.

By ChrisJenya