A’Omare Kyyam

Activist and poet (Chapel Hill, NC)

A message I would like to have heard while growing up and attending church was that this is home. For everyone. From any background. But instead there were always stipulations.

A’omore grew up attending the churches of several family members.

From an early age, he enjoyed the pageantry of church, but never felt fully connected to the experience.

As he became a teenager and began to listen more carefully to the sermons, he found that his emerging identity as a young man who was attracted to both men and women was in direct conflict with the condemning messages that he heard coming from the pulpit.

In adulthood, he explored and experienced many different religions but ultimately stopped going to church out of concern that he will again be disappointed or excluded.