How much more pain must I bear, oh My god?
for how long must My heart be in agony?
how far away from him must I cast Myself to escape him?
for how long will My every thought be of My pain?
I prayed to you and you did not answer
I cried out in the temple of creation and you were not there
I pleaded and repented
I called out for justice
I asked for conviction
and you did not answer
take this pain from Me, oh My god
help Me to see your light
help Me to feel your presence
help Me to hear your voice
I do not ask for justice
I do not ask for revenge
not for him to suffer
I ask merely for My pain to be lessened
and to feel your love in Me
I have leaned on your words, oh My god
I have trusted in your being even when I could not feel you
you will deliver Me from My suffering
you will use Me to help others feel the love they are worthy of
STYLISTIC NOTES: I write this following a template given to me by one of my professors. First I have a complaint, then a petition, and finally a resolution. I also deliberately switched the capitalizations from an uppercase “g” in “god”, to uppercase “i” and “m”s when referring to myself. I wanted this to reflect the distance from faith I express in this piece, and, in contrast, the immediateness of my own pain and emotions.
CONTENT NOTES: This is an exercise I did for my Honors class, as a supplementary project to “The Tale of Genji”. I and many of my classmates had very strong adverse reaction to the text, which dealt with very strong themes of sexual assault, focused on the abuser as the main character. The text was very well-written and a beautiful example of early novel writing, but it had a very negative impact on me particularly because of the circumstances surrounding my reading of it.
I am a survivor of sexual assault, and so I wrote this from a place of mourning, of anger and hopelessness. I am not looking for healing in this piece of prose, but writing it was therapeutic and helped me to process my thoughts following the reading.
If you have any thoughts on this lament, or anything about an experience you would like to share, feel free to comment below and I will respond. This is a safe space.
