Rotten Hallelujah In Pastel Shells [Wraith]
Sunday morning crawls in on knees of mud and frost, graveyard grass still frozen in last night’s whisper of snow,
Kids in cheap suits and itchy dresses stomp along the path, shoes slicked with polish and someone else’s hope in tow.
The church up the hill rings its bells like everything’s forgiven, like the sky signed off on this whole ridiculous show,
While under the sod the older congregation listens in silence, ribs laced with roots from trees that stopped trying to grow.
The preacher grins wide from the stone steps, coat flapping in a cold that never quite feels natural,
Calls it a holy hunt, smiles through teeth that know how many secrets sit buried under this cheerful spectacle.
Moms hover with cameras, dads pretend their hangovers are allergies and not last night’s promised “never again” worn thin,
Plastic baskets squeak in small hands, pastel nets ready to scoop up miracles that come wrapped in foil and sugar sin.
Out in the grass, bunnies bolt through tilted headstones like soft little thieves with pink-twitch noses and dead-leaf paws,
One digs near a name etched in marble, dirt spraying across a date that never got the extra dash of second chances or rewrites or magic laws.
From that dark little scrape, a bright egg glints, candy-colored smile in a mouth of loam,
Like a joke the earth keeps telling, hiding sweetness in the same ground that swallowed every broken body that tried to call this place home.
The kids race screaming with delight, shrill voices cutting through the hymn leaking out the open doors,
They snatch sugar from above the bones of people who once begged for one more spring and got ferried past all these same candy-loud chores.
Every “He is risen” drifting from stained glass windows lands heavy where old ribs lean and crack,
And something under there hears the word “rise” and mistakes it for a summons, starts to push weak fingers back.
In the pews, grown-ups stand up and sit down on command, juggling bulletins, grief and grocery lists,
Mouthing along to the story that promises new life in exchange for belief, while their eyes stay glued to watches on their wrists.
They nod along as the pastor sells resurrection like a seasonal sale, one day only, sign on the door,
Never pausing to ask what happens if that promise leaks downward into soil full of people who still want more.
Down below, the dead don’t sleep as easy today; the word “reborn” hits like a shovel across a coffin lid,
Old drunk uncles, bitter wives, kids who didn’t get to grow up, all overhear that sales pitch and file a complaint in the way only silence did.
Roots clutch wrists like handcuffs, but the story pushes through, seeps into marrow,
And a few fingers twitch toward the surface just to check if that light they remember actually turned hollow.
Out back, behind the church where the grass runs thinner and the maintenance budget forgot to exist,
A cracked stone angel leans sideways, wings eroded down to stumps that look less holy and more like fists.
Spiderwebs lace her eyes, but even stone seems to flinch when a little girl wanders too far from the cheerful pack,
Her white dress dragging through mud as she spots a single egg sitting right on a grave like a bright, stupid target on a pitch-black back.
“Mine,” she whispers, half prayer, half victory, stretching small fingers out over the carved name of a boy who never hit twenty,
Her hand hovers, and for one long second the air goes thin, like the sky sucked all its breath in and offered nothing in return, just plentyOf warning in that metallic taste that rides just before lightning hits,
Yet she plucks that egg anyway, laughs, and inside the box beneath her feet, old bones grind and quit their fits.
Inside the sanctuary, candles flicker as if someone just opened a cellar door under the altar and let in a draft,
The choir hits a note that trembles, warbling through the word “forever” like that syllable might tear in half.
A crucifix gleams in the morning light through tinted glass, polished for the occasion to make sure the suffering looks presentable and clean,
Meanwhile outside, a worm crawls out from under a candy wrapper and writhes like it heard the same sermon and wants off this scene.
Easter lilies line the stage, white trumpets shouting purity while their pollen slowly poisons every cat that gets too close,
The whole day sells rebirth like a greeting card; fine print says nothing about which dead things qualify, or how they’re chosen, or who’s the host.
If grace truly pounds through these bells, pounding out across town like an unpaid debt in golden sound,
Someone under every yard should probably feel fingers loosening from the dirt, somebody’s granddad should shake the worms and climb back up to grab one more round.
Instead, a select few rise, but only inside, behind sternums that ache when the choir hits that last refrain,
A widow on the left side of the aisle feels his hand on hers for half a breath, then it slips away again.
A single dad in the back row fights tears, seeing his daughter’s empty Easter basket on the kitchen table in every stained-glass color,
And a kid on the floor pew doodles skulls on his bulletin while adults chant about life, not realizing this whole act reads more horror than any slasher.
Outside, eggs pile in baskets, sugar mountains built above roots that never stopped craving something more than quiet rot,
Kids go home sticky and loud, parents collapse on couches, pretending this holy brightness patched every crack life brought.
By evening, wrappers shine in gutters like tiny foil tombstones, and empty shells crunch under tires in the street,
Plastic grass spills from trash bags like counterfeit resurrection, bright and loud and headed for the dump on some side road heat.
Night slides back over the graveyard, slow and deliberate, pulling purple shadows over stone and cross,
The church goes dark one window at a time, leaving the hill to hum with whatever mix of miracle and loss.
Down in the soil, the restless settle, some swearing under their breath that next year they’ll claw harder for the promise that floated over them and never stuck,
Others chuckle dryly in their coffins, muttering that coming back just means more bills, more pain, more broken eggs, same dumb luck.
Spring keeps pushing buds onto branches anyway, green fingers prying open bark that thought it had earned a permanent rest,
Grass thickens around graves no one visits, birds scream sunrise whether anyone hears them or not, doing their loud, feathered best.
Maybe rebirth is less halo and more habit, less shining trumpets and more stubborn roots refusing to let go,
Maybe heaven sends blessings in crooked ways, like a kid placing a jellybean on a grave and walking off without ever knowing that gesture glowed.
By the time the next Sunday rolls around, plastic eggs will still be lodged in some hedges, half-faded and full of ants and rain,
And in the bones of this hill, everyone who stayed dead for another year will file that under “small mercy” and grin through the ache and the stain.
Easter joy, they call it, while rabbits hop across marble mouths and the cross grips the dawn like a knife raised high,
Somewhere between those hymns and these headstones, a crooked kind of grace limps forward anyway, dragging mud, sugar and half-rotten hope through the sky.