#stigmata sam

spreadeagle arms, your eyes stare upon the cathedral, nailed and held still, you think He’s looking upon you, and know that you have never wanted to burn but that is all you crave, at this moment. breathless, pure, bloodied.

the only thing that changes is whose blood it is.

blood in your mouth, your throat, your chest; you’re forever drowning in it. slit from navel to throat, maybe the only thing that will spill out is rosesweet holywater. 

maybe you’d swallow that down, too.

it always comes down to the blood in your mouth.

holiness and light and self hatred; pinned like a butterfly, coyote gold eyes. never again shall you be yourself. 

something is growing inside of you, with each stuttering exhale, with each swallowed down grace shard that they press to your mouth with theirs. they take your jaw, mouth to mouth, kiss you with a tenderness you think you never wanted to know from them.

a great something is born, and it knows only cages, knows only cages and shackles. only blood and pain, holiness and light and revenge and you have borne it with familiarity. 

you have lost count of how many times you know this pain. the slick slice of nails, in wrists, in ankles. the hyperextension of your chest, blood and grace, holy rosewater replacing the breathlessness.

eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani! cried, hollered, swallowed down in angelic sweet mouths that give only grace and no life.

you haven’t forsaken him, but he has you, but maybe that’s the secret. 

maybe that’s the thing that you’ve never been able to get through to your head. you close your eyes, old age rituals, suicides always go to hell you know. but this is not like all those years before.

before your home, before dean, before everything.

in the end there was you, your brother, your angel.

before everything, there was only you and the morningstar forever burning bright, light-bringer, other half of your soul that you never wanted.

you burnt him out of you, and even then it’ll never be enough.

(that’s the secret.

you were burned, you were about to burn, you are still on fire.)

in gerber, oaklahoma, it’s three am and here, here you’re drowning in feathers, in grace, in blood, in the forgiveness you force yourself to feel as they crowd,

live, the angels, the demons, your brethren say. rise, rise rise!

you cannot hear for the blood.

you’re thankful for it.

INTERMISSION.

now.

now there is only you. only you, and those coyote gold eyes.

you arise, you arise and you arise. you are bent wood and rusted nails, something inside you have been borne anew.

messiah they breathe, they pray, they holler.

they took your body into their arms, fashioned themselves into your cross.

in the trench site of your heart, yarrow flowers bloom and wither in seconds, far deep beneath your ribs, your heart, everything you ever knew. .

from your hands, your feet, your back, your ribs, blood pools, slick and black and glistening. your crown of thorns are rotting, splitslick with your own blood. you do not feel the pain of it.

your brethren fall to their knees, angels and demons alike, your brother, your angel, they alone stand in the fields. your angel, your warrior, he gazes upon you, veins black, splattered, dismorphing, leviathan teeth grin.

lightbringer, one calls upon you. they are slit, navel to throat. no. no, you are not the lightbringer, not the morningstar.

you swallowed him down, and down into your belly went michael too