[glimpses and accounts of an angel, possibly gabriel in restaurant and neon diner windows and half empty parks]
i. there is a hollow, grey ache in your soul and it burns and shutters like thunder and lightning. you reek of hopelessness and dutiful rain. you look upto the heavens and wonder when you can come home without feeling like you’re falling.
ii. golden child, lion boy, tell me what it’s like to reign, to pray, to win. you stand at gritty bus stations, abandoned churches, the tops of bright green trains, searching, searching, losing. your hands are covered in blue biro and blood and tears. static voices of mortal newcasters ends up in your ear. you hear war, you hear death, you hear children, you hear guns. holiness is a choked up word in your throat and your halo digs into your skull like barbed wire. so you sleep.
iii. fearless boy, damaged king, tell me what it’s like to burn. dirt on your knees and fine stardust in your hair. you just want to fly. so when michaels asks if you’re happy, you tell him you are infinite. “are ye happy?”, he asks once more. you take a breath into corrupted lungs. “no. art thou?”
iv.when a boy with fine boned features puts a hand on your weary shoulder and takes a pamphlet you hand made yourself, you smile, for the first time in weeks you smile.
v. hope is synonymous with war. there was a time before that. and before that and it’s worse. so because that’s all you’ll ever know you swallow moonlight and hand out more pamphlets and fliers emphasising words like peace and love and why won’t you listen? you attend church masses with slightly misinterpreted stories and pray.