Communion.

The Prodigal.

I am fighting in the stifling heat.

I cannot muster the strength to lift my eyes to search for the possibility of rain to heal my throat.

I feel every inhale as rasping pain and every exhale as the wish for it to be my last.

Just willing one foot in front of the other is draining me faster than the world can replenish.

Beads of sweat that my body can barely afford to spare have made

trail marks down my dust covered face and arms,

and I can trace every wrong step I have taken in every single missing thread

in my servant’s cloth.

Each tear tells me of the times I cried in desperation as I fell into the weight of it all.

Each stain reminds me that I have slept in the earth and communed with the soil.

The hunger is now consuming me. Not hunger for food, for I have known the shame of desiring to steal from the lowliest of all.

The hunger for what I remember.

The hunger to be hungry no more.

And there you are, Husband.

And there you are.

And here you are.

I have imagined your form. I have imagined your figure.

I have surely imagined the way the tears from your eyes are washing my undeserving face.

I have imagined the  honor of your arms around my neck.

I can feel the weight of you pressing into me, willing my heart closer. But the weight is lighter than air.

The weight is uplifting.

And soon my feet can no longer feel the earth beneath them, nor even the weight of my own body.

I am breathing deeply the sweet sent of your neck as you wrap me closer and closer.

You are speaking, but I have never cared less what words have left your lips,

just the tone of your voice has soothed me into reverence.

You are proposing again and again Husband.

You are asking for my hand.

You are asking me to be alive.

You are asking me, with awestruck eyes, to return your gaze when once I wished for you not to exist at all.

While I stumble beside your graceful footfalls,

The world gazes at me with renewed eyes and whispers,

“have you seen a more beautiful wife?”

“have you seen a Husband with more loving eyes?”

And as You slide a ring upon my hand,

You adorn me with far more than clothing and jewels,

You adorn me with the memory of who I am.

Of who I was always meant to be.