The Cup Was Already Clean

The water is hot enough to sting, but you keep scrubbing the single cup no one else has touched. You tell yourself it is just routine, just the way the evening ends, while your hands burn and the steam rises like a quiet accusation.

There is a Father who saw his son coming home from a long way off, covered in the filth of pig pens, and he ran before the apology could even form on the boy's lips. He did not ask for the dishes to be washed first.

He did not require the shame to be scrubbed away. He ran.

The light does not wait for you to finish cleaning before it enters the room. It sees the red skin on your hands and the exhaustion in your shoulders, and it calls you beloved anyway.

You are washing a cup that was already clean, trying to earn a seat at a table that was already set for you. Stop.

The burning in your hands is not the price of admission. It is the signal that you are trying to do what has already been done.

The water cools. The cup is enough.

The light is already sitting beside you, waiting for you to put the rag down and simply be there.