The way his voice rang through the air, the way his body radiated with beauty; I cannot get that glorious image out of my brain. He was an Angel. That statement seems to me as the only truth I can accept. I look upon his form and soul as my prophet, my Christ, my lover. My mind is woeful that I cannot fathom the last one but how I know it is real. Perhaps in the future, our souls will reignite as our bodies did in the Celestial Kingdom. The way in which his slim yet strong hands held me with such care that night, my God, the stars were aligned that beautiful evening. I believe through all of his glory, the lord blessed me in one way or another with him. Blessed or tested my fortitude and I was fruitless in that endeavor. I laid with another man. My own prophet nonetheless. I could not resist the temptation sent to me by our caring Lord. I do not think I could do justice to the way he looked that night in the low light of the candles, illuminating his angelic frame. The buzz of that sweet and unholy whiskey, while he was more intoxicated than I, he was as charismatic as ever. I could not resist him, I never could. I’ve always struggled with my attraction towards other men but he was the one I could never face.
My wives, I pity them. I think it’s cruel the fate they have to suffer. Married to a man who can never truly love them in the way they deserve to be loved. But does the Lord always give us the fates we deserve? Because if I got the fate I deserved I would be burning in hell with the heathens and sinners. His azure eyes stared at me when he touched in a way that no man should touch another man. But could something that pleasurable that breathtaking be such a grievous sin? But that is the devil speaking through me, trying to turn me away from an ever merciful God. Life is about devotion to the good Lord, not to men. Even if that man is the closest to godly I have seen and will ever see. I need to pray, for the sanctity of my marriages, for my idolatry, for my devotion to something that is not my God.
That night will haunt me, I know it will, as the burning of the library of Alexandria haunts the ancient world, as the fall of Rome haunts the present world, as the Ides of March haunts Caesar. He grabbed me, he kissed me like nothing else, it was divine in its sanctity. I felt God's love through him, his salvation. I knew in that moment that God was merciful and good because he had given me time with the man I loved. I will always treasure that night, not only because of the ghost of him that lingers when I speak the good word but because of the profound effect he had on me. I do not know what sort of man I would be without him, my own piece of Jesus. And like Jesus he died far too young, our sin being his Judas kiss. Marking the end of his destiny, such a divine, angelic man taken from us far too soon because of my inability to resist the devil’s temptation.
The days after I mourned, I was John as he mourned Christ. I could not escape his ghost, or was that my own guilt, I do not know. Did Judas love Jesus and knowingly send him to his death? Did I? Grief is strange and persistent, dripping into the nooks of my life where I least expected it too. I’m not sure how John lived with the grief, how any of them did. Losing a man so close to divine you could feel it. I still see him sometimes, in the most queer of places, most often in the chapel. I fear it is God's punishment for sealing such a holy man’s place, forever being taunted by his presence yet unable to keep hold of him, like smoke. My sins, numerous, spilled out of me like blood from a wound as I confessed them to the good lord.
He never responded. It’s a bittersweet mercy. I would rather face God's indifference for my sins than face his wrath. Life lost its color without his constant presence, even in death you cannot get the stain of his presence out of your life. I wandered aimless, Cain’s spirit filling me. I went through the monotony of life with my wives, running the church. All for him, it’s always been for him. I hold onto him still, in my own way. Through my memory even if adulterated is the easiest way to remember my prophet, my love. My angel is gone. His love, pure as God’s while mine was full of imperfections, but I still gave far too much of it to him.
Days bleed into weeks that bleed into months that bleed into years. Each as long and tedious as the last. Sometimes I’m bitter. I think that feeling will always linger like the faint pain in my joints that comes with age. My wives age and bear me children. I can only hope that God was merciful enough to not bestow upon them my nature. I was Abraham, living a lie, a false truth. I had all of God’s gifts upon me and they were hollow compared to him. Echoes of him were all around me, this was his faith after all. I still see him in everything, in the rituals, in my sermons, even in my worship. Because before I worshipped God I worshipped him.
Our drunken sin, our sweet drunken sin. Decades later that night has not faded from my memory. Unlike so many memories of him, which are paintings, faded with age covered and dust and so often untouched. How his golden hair shone under that light, the way he called out to me, his cries were so sweet, so beautiful. I do not think I’ve heard anything so divine since. How good it felt, the things he made me feel, and the things I made him feel. I could live a thousand years, a thousand lifetimes and I would never earn him. I would trade all of my days ahead for just one with him. But I will never get that chance. Maybe in another lifetime, in another time we would not have known God, we could have been happy. Even if it is not the nature of things. Love and grief are such odd things, they linger and haunt a man like stains on a shirt, something that fades with time but will always be there in some capacity. That night was his Judas kiss, but even Jesus could find it in himself to forgive and love Judas. I only hope in heaven Joseph can find it in himself to forgive me for what I have done to him. My Angel, my prophet, my lover, my ghost.
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theartofmadeline
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