Held

I stood through the whole service,

held the hymnal high,

and nobody noticed me trying not to cry

under the weight of the book,

under the prayer,

under the thing we're supposed to care about.

The spine was worn smooth

from forty years of hands

that held it before mine,

and I could see the marks

where someone had drawn a line,

underlined a verse in blue ink faded to gray,

left their belief behind

and walked away.

My arms got tired.

My shoulders burned.

But I kept holding,

kept the pages from closing,

kept myself from putting it down,

kept the performance going,

kept pretending

that this weight

meant something.

By the end

my fingers had cramped

around the spine,

and I was sweating,

and the woman beside me

had set hers down

an hour ago

and didn't seem to mind

that God

or the hymnal

or belief

or whatever this was

didn't need to be held

so tight.

I walked out with my arms aching,

and only in the parking lot

did I put it down,

only when I was alone

did I let myself admit

that I couldn't carry it,

that the weight was too much,

that if faith

requires this much

endurance,

then I don't have

the arms for it.