Hymn 

what everyone cannot understand, truly, 

is that I missed you when you were alive.

each day when I woke up, 

and each night when I laid down, and all the in between

I missed you. 

when the foliage changed and it grew cold, or

through the waving heat of summer, I missed you.

I would pacify the primal infant wailing of my heart 

with a call. to check in

to say hello

to say I miss you

to say I love you

to say I really do miss you, mom— 

how do people grow up and “start a family”?

I have never understood how I could grow up 

and start something that had been sewn into my soul 

before I even tasted the salt of air. 

I feel like an outsider, watching people make families 

and build new houses, while I linger in the womb of my birth. 

in the softest of places, my devotion feels religious

in the same way, perhaps, that holy water and bent knees 

echo a call to god. 

they say it is hard to watch children grow up and grow out. but

how do we grow out? how long is a daughter a child?

how long will I be your daughter? … am I really anything else?

this identity feels infinite. it feels all-encompassing. 

the very first belonging. 

and so nothing has changed and I miss you still. 

yet I cannot hear your voice. is this mourning not sacred? 

do I need a pulpit? I offer these musings as my hymns. 

all this time, 

my call to you has always been a prayer. 

-the god of Bernadette