Warning: This was hard to write. It may be difficult to read. Take care of you.
It was Dickens who said, “You have been in every line I have ever read,” I would submit that you have been in every line I have ever written.
As I sit here to write to you, tears prick my eyes. I press my lower lip against my upper in a vain attempt to reduce the quiver. To write to you means I must address you the man, you the thief, you the cleric, you the liar.
It requires that I look across from you and look you square in the eyes. Those eyes that saw with ease the crushing vulnerability that I so vainly tried to hide. Those eyes that looked upon me with hunger that I mistook for hope. Those eyes that reduced me to a pawn for your pleasure and left me in a pool of pain.
Those eyes.
A soft sob escapes my lips until I notice yours. Lips set beneath hungry hunting eyes to an even more malevolent mouth. You lick your lips frequently when you speak like a predator salivating at its prey. While my lips quiver, yours curl into a cold calloused smile that never quite meets your eyes. You hid the distance with your words. Smooth, burning words the should have blessed — but cursed. Words that should have birthed life but inseminated death. Lips that spoke winsome wicked words, that overwhelmed and stole mine; lips that tore my flesh to shreds.
Those lips.
I avert my eyes only to look at my hands, fold them, and then look back at yours. The hands meant to hold; the hands folded in prayer; the hands raised in worship; the hands thumbing through the word. The hands reaching; rubbing, ripping; stealing; grabbing; robbing; raping; taking.
Those hands.
It’s difficult for me to get beyond your hands, they sit with clean filed nails neatly folded into your lap. I close my eyes and clench my teeth. I swallow hard, the bile of revolting remembrance. A fathers lap was to be safe, it was a weapon of warfare to me. These things should never be. I can only stare at your feet.
Those feet.
I look long and hard up to the right, my eyes catch the light. “Look, look upon me,” says He. Sorrow swims to the edges of his eyes filled to the brim with pain; a pain that somehow, seems soothing. Large, brown, beautiful deep wells of knowing. Eyes that didn’t look at me, but in me.
Those eyes.
Lips that quiver as he sips. Lips that chose to drink the steaming cup of suffering; to swallow the sorrow of the whole world… my whole world.
Those lips.
I glance down to his hands; ruddy; calloused hands; wounded; gouged hands. He offers his hands to mine. I take. Wound for wound his blood mingles with my brokenness. Sorrow and love flow in a divine dance that is deep, arterial, and ethereal.
It is difficult for me to go beyond his hands. I glance and his garments, then look at my ruined rags. “They took my clothes,” I cried. My face I bury in his wounded side. He was filleted by the faithful too. I can only stare at his feet.
Those feet.