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The gentle footsteps tapped away at the patio stones leading up to the graveyard entrance, the sounds of their boots getting louder as they reached the gateway to the interior of the dead. The shroud of vines that encased the garden almost in a suffocating nature to the living would act as a sanctuary for those who are not with Mother Earth anymore; for they would act as a shield from the evil of those on Earth until the plants won’t grow anymore.
Walking to the garden, the one whom came to the graves fell silent and ill. For they knew that the world was poisoned and those vines would eventually fall like the tyrants that our history painted to be the victors. Only the vines are just a symbol, and the tyrants were those who put those in the graves that the symbols protect. Walking up to the garden of headstones, corpses and weeds left behind by those who forget to honor those who came before them, the one approaching this garden couldn’t help but be full of thought. They knew what they were, would they be remembered as a tyrant or would history shroud them with lies to disguise them as a prize.
The wind wisped through their long hair like the ghost of their old lover, running his hands through their hair once again like he did when they were young children. The lover who had been protecting them since the beginning only to turn and murder the new blossoming love the first chance they got. Oh to think about how venomous their love for each other was made one’s blood boil in a manner that was painful but comforting. The sticky sensation caused by the humidity of that suffocation. His glares from across the table watching them with their new lover. She was perfect, they knew that, he knew that. He agreed with his overlord that she belonged on the ceiling, above them as they claimed she was.
They felt the passion grow stronger, enveloping their body the way a cursed hug would the closer they got to the corpse. They felt half of him grow distant and the other half yearn for him like he had appeared to in college. Much colder than the cafes of warm reds, oranges, and welcoming yellows- being replaced by the ominous greys, greens, and black asphalt that paved their way clearer than anything had been paved. You don’t understand the way to something until it is only a ghost of what it was.
They fell to their knees in front of the grave when they reached it for a reason that not even God could recall through all the raw emotion. Their tears fell like a waterfall that their hands cupped their eyes in a sad attempt to collect. They remembered it all, the pain from both of them, their him and their her. One was pure with goodness but the other was pure in the idea that it was all there. Both full of lies but only one full of passion while the other was like honey. They didn’t know how to feel, and it made them sick to think that they still loved him after what he did to her. They should’ve known that they couldn’t co-exist. Now that the smoke cleared over the last week they knew exactly why.
The pain of it all, Hell and Heaven were exactly the same. It was nowhere close to Yin and Yang, it was the same evil, just vanta black and titanium white. The difference between Times New Roman and Arial -- the words were written all the same and like MacBeth, they were aware for just a moment they were in some twisted play written by a sadistic God. The God that would rival in their pain. The God that never felt an ounce of sympathy and love. The God who only felt passion when they were intrigued. That was their God. For once the demon who wore the mask and the righteous person in disguise behind the cage bars that were their veins finally understood they were both played.
The mourning of it all, they didn’t realize his presence wrapped around him like a blanket. Their sobs eventually subsided in the comfort of the embrace. Upon the realization of this they almost felt ashamed to be in his comfort. For a moment, they didn’t care. The comfort without a shadow of a doubt felt so real, and so easy to succumb into. Now they knew exactly who he was, they knew that this was real. Despite how evil and venomous it was, they found themselves feeling at home.
It took them so long to accept that the darkness was more welcoming than the light, it took them so long. Now, they were comfortable. What they rejected was also rejected by the ones who rejected them. In a twisted way, my enemy’s enemy is my friend; especially if that friend welcomes you with open arms. Those arms closed around them and that safety was worth a million years of knowledge and life. They’d trade so much for this moment they were getting without a fee.
“Sing me a song, my love.”
They paused, they didn’t know what to sing. A nightingale with the melody caught in the back of their throat, so caught in the moment that they had no words. They both knew they could sing, the melodies from the dorm room back in college when they would bake for him were proof of that. The song that they wanted to sing suddenly got broadcasted to him on that ominous evening in the welcoming home of the dead. The song that spoke to them from the moment they first heard it. The song they’d cry to alone at three in the morning would now be the song they’d sing as a graveyard offering to the lover who betrayed them.
“My lover’s got humor,
she’s the giggle at a funeral,
Knows everybody’s disapproval,
I should’ve worshipped her sooner”
When they first heard the song, ironically, they were in the church, the house of those who oppressed people like them. People like them and him. The house in which they prayed in, for so many years. The house they still pray in sometimes, to cling onto something, even something that rejects them.
“If the Heavens ever did speak
She's the last true mouthpiece
Every Sunday's getting more bleak
A fresh poison each week”
They knew it all too well, the poison of it all. Hearing, “I’m poison” from your own brother and agreeing with him, or even metaphorically speaking with the strings that held you closely to the world’s most important puppet show for so long. Sometimes they wonder if college was the last time they were ever truly happy, and even then they were putting on a mask. The vile things him and they would hear outside of Church on a Sunday morning added insult to injury especially when they found out God was bisexual. Something like them, they hated being like God.
“My church offers no absolutes
She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom"
The only Heaven I'll be sent to
Is when I'm alone with you”
They picked up their voice from the near quiet whisper it was and he wrapped around them some more. They didn’t want to seem pathetic saying this but in this moment they were never more alone, but never more free and comforted. Sometimes hiding behind a ghost in a graveyard is more comforting than the reality in which we live. No absolutes, even Heaven didn’t know the answer, but they would never go to Heaven would they? They were far too much of a freak. The story that parents told their kids at night so they’d sleep. Not with him, he was safe.
“I was born sick, but I love it
Command me to be well
A-, Amen, Amen, Amen”
11 years ago they would’ve told you that the sickness they were born with was a gift in some twisted way. Some way to save the world or end it, that choice was up to them. But now they know the truth, they said they accepted who they were but did they? Did they really? Hiding it for over a decade just to let it all out now in a sorrow song that their beloved traitor would only hear.
“Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life”
That reminded them of the prayer they uttered the moment they walked into that church and offered their grimy soul to the gates of Hell on a silver platter. They believed in that God and the lies that God told. They believed it all had a reason, that God’s plan was foolproof. But their brother, that was the worst part, their brother knew their sins like the back of his hand that they got slapped with constantly. But their him, he never judged them, ever. Even in death that love was there.
“Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
If I'm a pagan of the good times
My lover's the sunlight
To keep the Goddess on my side
She demands a sacrifice”
They felt a cold hand through their long fluffy hair during the lover’s verse that felt more soothing than anything they had experienced in years. He was by their side, that was all that mattered. It made them sick but the grace of his presence made it easier to breathe. He was a demon, but at the same time, he was brighter than a soul, than God, than a thousand suns. The Goddess by their side, that was him.
“Drain the whole sea
Get something shiny
Something meaty for the main course
That's a fine looking high horse
What you got in the stable?
We've a lot of starving faithful
That looks tasty
That looks plenty
This is hungry work”
When they were a little kid, no older than 10, they remembered praying in front of the little christmas tree that their brother stole from a gas station one year. They wanted to know why they had to sacrifice so much. Their childhoods, a stable home. 15 years later they found themselves praying about that same topic. Why did they have to sacrifice so much for a world that rejected them. Why couldn’t they just be happy. No matter how much they offered up, they were denied and casted out. Nothing was ever good enough for their family, for Heaven, for the world. Yet they still saw beauty in it. Which was a miracle in itself. They loved to give second chances to people, maybe that’s why they were in the arms of the ghost instead of pumping rocksalt inside of them.
“Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Offer me my deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life”
They found themselves returning to the chorus like the winds of their greatest sins would come back. That sin was wrapped around them tighter than this ghost, sins that made them who they were to the very core. Sins that made them wonder if they should burn when they walked into church. For they worshipped a religion that had done nothing but reject them, why did they find it beautiful?
“No masters or kings when the ritual begins
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean
Oh, oh, Amen, Amen, Amen”
You see their brother shared the belief that being pure was inherently linked to being human, but their brother wasn’t around anymore, was he? The only thing that was left was the dirt they were kneeling on and the ghost wrapped around them. The passion and hatred filled the air like an aroma, was there anything human or anything pure in this graveyard? No, just a sad love story between the corrupt and the corrupted. The corruption that they desperately wanted to turn back to, might I add.
They knew they were a walking sin, what they were made of, what they enjoyed, who they chose to love. Maybe in another world that sin wouldn’t be a sin, maybe it would be common practice. Oh to be different is a curse laid upon you disguised as a gift. Those without that sin in their blood would never understand the terrifying relief that tickles your skin like fireflies when you indulge.
And finally…
“Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
Take me to church
I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life.”
They breathed out, inhaling the fragrance of the area and letting themselves feel the warmth of the cold ghost. “I am not your love.” They added on afterwards, yet they still listened to the song and obeyed that command. They stood up, shaking the ghost off of them, for once feeling alive. “You were my greatest regret, but when I was with you was when I really felt alive.”
The ghost stood, he looked at them in their yellow eyes. “Then stay.”
They shook their head, “I can’t. I love you, I will always love you. But in order to be who my brother needs me to be, I can’t.” They said, turning around and leaving. They felt the tug of the ghost trying to guide them back to him. They’d grown too much for that, they couldn’t look back, not anymore. They had to look towards the future their brother wanted for them. Maybe in another universe it would matter what they wanted.
And so Sam Winchester left the graveyard, feeling lighter than they had in a decade. So they left the graveyard, empty handed and alone. So they left the graveyard, denying what was in their bones.