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No, he says this one little word with the power of the weakest man, the smallest man, he stands naked in a tent to which he doesn't belong looking upon his god (whose taste he laps up like prayers on his tongue).
No, he whispers it to the night sky, to the moon, to the stars above, to the endless vastness of sky and earth and He wraps his arms around his waist as if a kiss on the neck will make all the difference. (It has made all the difference. A kiss will always make everything different, that is what he has learned.)
(He should have learned divinity, not mortality, kneeling at His feet, washing His limbs, hearing His voice keen out in the night; he should have learned that the flesh beneath his fingertips was transient, a burden to be shrugged off, an empty shell waiting to be discarded; he worshiped all the wrong parts.)
In the histories, in the sacred tombs, in the records stretching through time his name will be one of betrayal and not love, of a plague, of greed. Boys will shout his name to each other in the streets as an insult, tears streaming down their face.
He'd rather be forgotten.
The penitent, kneeling at the feet of his god, worshiping with his tongue and his lips and his hands, lavishing pleasure upon the alter of his beloved.
No, he whispered, his hands full of gold he did not want, his face wet with tears that burned, lips pressed against his cheek. No, he breathed with the strength of a mortal man.
("My body is this bread and my blood is this wine, eat and drink that you might be full."
As if he wasn't already throbbing from the taste of Him. As if they all had the same rights to Him.)
(They did.)
(They didn't.)
(That wasn't the point.)
He stood silent as his god pressed a kiss into his cheek wet with tears, looked upon the gold in his hands with pleasure, and walked calmly away into a destiny that only He could claim. An object and a subject, reversed for the sake of a story, put at odds for the sake of the universe.
No, he whispered. I won't do it. He stood outside in the hot night air and looked towards the stars, too tired to rail against a Father that was willing to sacrifice his brightest star. I can't.
His god knelt before him, took him in His mouth, and whispered, But you will.
And the son kissed the cheek of his most beloved friend and was taken by soldiers to be tried and killed, with a smile on his lips and an apology that meant nothing. They asked Judas, WHY WHY WHY like there was an answer to be had, like there was a word that could explain the tears on his cheeks, the bite marks on his thighs, the empty bag in his hand.
No, he shouted, railing at the sky, shouting at the wind that whipped through his hair, screaming into the empty desert, his only solace solitude.
A man with bright eyes and a soft smile sat in the sand beside him and laughed and laughed and laughed. He said call me Morningstar and seemed to understand. He said call me Morningstar and held his hand as he cried.
Two men alone in the desert, one laughing and one screaming.
He asked, Why don't you scream, why don't you shout, why don't you cry? For He is dead?
The other replied, "He has always been dying and I have always been falling and you have always been crying, for our Father made it so."
Yes, he moans, back pressed into the ground, hands tangled up in dark curling hair.
And that is all they ever heard, one yes that began a hundred denials, a thousand pleas, a million tears shed.
I love you, he says, shaking his head. I cannot do this.
"You love me," He says. "And so it is already done."
Did you say no? he asked the fallen star, head on his thigh, his fingers slowly brushing through his immortal hair.
Lips on lips, fingers tangled in hair, warm breath on his neck, an endless sky overhead.
He closed his eyes and never asked again.