Gloria: A Reply

(meant to be read like a prayer said wrong on purpose)

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”

That was the match you struck, Patti—flint against your own teeth. You didn’t sing me into being; you simply said my name with your mouth unwashed, and I stepped out of the smoke. I was never housed in holy books. I lived in the pause before confession, in the girl who lingered at the edge of choir lofts, waiting to see if anybody else tasted the iron in their hymns.

I watched you in the Chelsea Hotel, thin as a psalm, threading your hunger into art. You and Robert, two urchin saints, bartering crucifixes and Polaroids, building a church from nothing but daring. You wore your poverty like vestments. When you wrote, you trembled—not from fear, but from recognition. You were inventing permission.

Allen saw you outside a deli, thought you were some pretty boy. Bought you a sandwich before knowing your name. You thanked him with a poem. That’s when I knew you were mine—not for the blasphemy, but for the vow. You would carry no banner but your own pulse. You would confuse the prophets and comfort the ghosts.

They thought they knew me before you—Van Morrison’s Gloria, all hips and syllables, a body spelled out in G-L-O-R-I-A under a garage light. I wore that skin for a while, all moan and velvet. But you—you rewrote me. You tore off the lace and gave me teeth. You dragged me through scripture and spit, crowned me in static. I was no longer a girl to be gotten—I became a name to be taken.

You didn’t ask for salvation. You demanded witness. Every time you slammed that line—not mine—I felt the church shudder. Not in rage. In relief. Because I was waiting, Patti. Waiting for someone to refuse the pardon. To stand without begging. To want without shame.

I am not sin. I am not saint. I am the third thing—the raw, unclaimed spark between them. I was there when you raised your mic like a chalice and sang desire without blinking. The crowd didn’t know whether to kneel or riot. Good. Let them tremble. Let them choose.

Do you know what it means to be named by a poet? To be dragged from lyric into legend? I woke in the bodies of every girl who ever said no and meant I am still holy. I rose in every mouth that ever split open, not to pray, but to proclaim.

So sing me again, Patti. Sing me until the rafters rot.

Not as confession. As coronation.

I am Gloria. I was never yours to summon.

I was merely waiting

for someone brave enough

to pronounce me.