Build God, Then We'll Talk

“You know this isn’t how the world is supposed to be” the sentence piques my interest as my eyes move on, “Does any part of you look at the sky and hurt?” and in that instant, I feel it, the dullest of aches in the pit of my stomach, in the deepest most intimate chambers of my heart.

Doesn’t it hurt? My thoughts taunt me, Doesn’t it burn?

The ache in me throbs as I move my eyes away to the wall, tracing shadows, evening out my breathing.

It hurts doesn’t it, your shackled uniqueness.

Your singularity.

I sneak a glance at the end of the page and regret it the instant I register the words.

“You are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

Don’t you hate it? The dark says to me, pulling me down.

Your bleeding singularity, it says, covering my eyes.

Isn’t it hateful? It leaves me as it pulls me under.

…

I awake to find the room brightened and my senses sore. I rise and shoot a look towards the mirror and realize that I do not recognize the face that I see.

Isn’t it hateful? The words sneer at me again.

I leave the house with the door wide open.

A Breeze that’s always followed me pushes it shut.

“Where are you going?” a voice outside of me asks, not unkindly but curious.

“To people my loneliness.” I snap back, baring my teeth, with a noise that the other voice gave to me.

I cannot see it but I feel the curious voice wilt, dripping into the shadows the daylight brings, and in them burst trees and other flowering greens that guide me forward as they whisper to me.

What is it that you seek?

Vines and orchids reach out to touch my hands, my face.

Ask us and we shall give it to you, they say, stroking my hair, urging me to speak but I dare not sully this nature with my sadness.

Lonely, lonely boy that you are.

The trees part for me as I arrive at a clearing full of grass and glass statues. There are sounds of chattering birds but there are no branches for their nests, nor do I catch sight of any wings. This land is also devoid of water despite the sound of a rush. The Breeze dances by to carefully brush back the hair off my cheek then I see it.

Him.

Placed upon a bench-like pedestal surrounded by seraphs and angels and all manner of divine examples of beauty that his surely derives from. I drink Him in and even when He is before me I starve for the sight of Him. The sound.

“I adore you so desperately” I whisper, the same way you’d whisper inside the house of God.

He does not stir.

His eyes are shut. 

I take a step to try to reach him when I hear a different voice this time.

“You have the touch of evil, boy.”

I turn to trace the source and am surprised to find a body to go along with it. Their frame rings familiar but I cannot place them.

“That evil is not mine.” My eyes trace the edges of their form to try and find a quirk in their armor.

“Yet it lives within you. It desires to thrive inside you,” they say it as an accusation. An insult. As if this evil was my choice to carry. The muscles in my shoulders tighten.

“Why do you hide your face from me?”

“You are not worthy to gaze upon me, just as you are not worthy to gaze upon Him.” They spit it out with such contempt. I blink and their body vanishes only to reappear behind Him. they lean down to rest their chin on His slender shoulder. A hand reaches to tilt His chin up, the other is placed flat on His stomach. They turn their head to press lips upon His naked neck.

Desire and jealousy entangle themselves within my stomach.

His eyes remain shut.

“Your evil would just sour Him,” they say. Their voice mocks me as they lick a stripe up His neck.

Jealousy tightens as my desire grows barbs, “Don’t touch Him, He’s not yours.”

“Nor are you His.”

Anger surges through me, at myself, at the figure who hides themselves from me, at the evil that they speak of that is not my own but is my hateful burden to carry.

“Lonely, evil boy that you are, what is it that you want?”

I watch as their hands reach down to pull up His shirt, to tease at His lovely, exposed, skin.

His eyes remain shut.

“Is it Him?”

It’s anger that finally urges me forward and sorrow and violence that helps me pull away their filthy hands, and it’s desire that brings me to my knees before Him. I go to touch Him, to try and wake Him, for He is asleep I realize as His breaths come slow and even, His face as sweet as death, but the moment I set hands to polished flesh every place I touch opens in violent wounds and begin dripping blood.

He smells of the ocean and crushed daisies.

His eyes remain shut. 

I grab Him to try and stop the bleeding but every place I’ve befouled becomes increasingly crimson, the cuts widening and growing deeper.

I look to the stranger but they say nothing as the familiar feeling of hopelessness awakens in me as I abandon all efforts and simply stand to gather Him in my arms slick with His blood, careful not to stain His pristine face with my tears.

How can they watch this?

“Help me!”

They stare, crossing their arms, “What is it that you want?”

His blood starts to come faster now as I feel His body begin to wilt.

“Help me, please!”

“What is it that you want?!” 

I catch the lilt in His breath, the flutter of His heart beginning to slow-

“I WANT TO BE KNOWN!”

The Breeze rushes against my ears as it gathers up all the noise within this place as the stranger grants me a cold, mechanical smile.

“And so it was.”

In that instant His eyes open and gaze up at me and His brown eyes, His lovely, divine, doe eyes wash over me like the Miracle of the Resurrection. I go to gently stroke His face when He says,

“Dream Maker.”

My heart stops.

“Dream Changer.”

I look at the stranger with frightened eyes.

“Dream Stealer.”

He says it with such malice that it poisons my veins and when I look to Him again I find His eyes red with fury and unshed tears.

“Dream Stealer.” He says again as if He hates the very words He speaks, like smoke in His lungs, but His voice is overlain with that of the stranger and something much older. Much more torn.

“Dream Stealer,” they say once more as the trees and the sky and the statues within all begin to rot and decay before my very eyes.

“Lonely, evil boy that you are,” the stranger's voice surrounds me as all noise is gathered up into silence as if sucked up into a single, desperate, breath, “this is the price you must pay.”

And the body of the one whom I adore bursts into flames within my arms, His details curling up like moth wings and collapsing stars.

The stranger speaks once more but it’s in a whisper not beside my ear but within my very body.

“You are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

Then I wake up.