No Angel Came

Well little one,

What precious gifts have you to give me?

What secrets have you kept hidden within the folds of your skin?

What flowers flourish in your freshly weeded garden?

Rue my lord, is planted in my garden

And the tears I have shed water them fully

With crystalline substance

Of a sea-salt nature

My gifts are all ripped open

The golden paper is torn

The perfume has spilled over into rank excess

All my secrets have been extracted from my flesh

Exposed and open I face the world

And as it please you

To leave me at your pleasure

I am not what I was before

So say I am not your child,

Nor that I ever had such gifts.

Did you not pledge to me your devotion,

Your patience,

Your soul and your body?

All to me were consecrated

And yet you stand before me

And say that all this you have squandered on another

Given your very self to unworthiness.

That he did take is a certainty

And that which was taken was indeed a gift

But I did no giving

Or else I might not stand thus before you

Unworthy I may be

Do not say I have squandered

Or fallen

Or have dirtied myself in your eyes

For your eyes did not look upon me when I was so sullied

All that I did

I did in your absence

Hush child, I was there

My eyes follow you always

Never have you been

Where I have not also dwelt

Then for shame that you did watch

What no man's eyes have right to see

Did my flesh turn gray and devoid of colour

That your all-seeing eye had cause to o'erlook

And discard your servant?

Did your ears, which hear the step of every ant on the sand,

Close off to my cries

Because they were not of sweetest music

But of the very stuff nightmares are made of?

Oh aye, I know well what the voice of hell sounds like.

I have heard it on my breath many a twilight hour

'Twas not my fault that evil abounds in the world my child,

Among the gifts I have given to humanity

The ability to choose

To walk whatever path, good or evil, is none but your own making.

I saw, and I grieved, but could do nothing.

If you could do nothing, then you are not, nor have you ever been

My lord and father,

immortal among mortals

the great I am.

Freedom for your people,

A kingship for your shepherd boy,

A victory for your army,

And no angel to help me out when my tears soak the ground.

Oh wicked father,

To leave his children thus.

Thou art alive,

Surely there must be some thanks for that.

Your wound is not so deep

That it cannot be healed with my love.

True my wound shall be healed,

By whether or not from thy love is yet to be foretold.

As for my life,

The thanks for that is my own.

For if you cannot claim power to help the earlier defilement

Then you have no claim to the later.

Either thy plan is eternal and unchanging

Or it is not.

Either thou hast divine hands that could save and chose not to

Or thou hast not.

Either it was thy will that I am disgraced thus

Or it is not, and thy hold on the future is none.

Can you not conceive?

I am no longer a child of yours.

Children die with their innocence.

Wisdom comes from the apple

Which you forbade Eve to take

We are none of us children now.

And what of Heaven? Wilt thou consent to stay apart from me

In fiery seclusion

Far from my hands and heart?

Wilt thou be separated from thy life so eagerly?

Your hands parted from my heart long ago

And Heaven becomes a Hell for me

When such serpents gather inside its gates.

You have enfolded into your arms

the one who has ripped me from that very spot

and he dwells in your house freely

while I wander in the darkness.

He has been forgiven child.

No sin touches him that I cannot wash away

And the same is true for you.

Such sin should not be washed

It has sunk into my skin so deep

My flesh is red from scrubbing

And yet the sin is not my own

But the one who put it there has been flushed clean

By your own hands.

And as you can forgive that sin

You remain my unforgiven

For it were as well you'd forgive Lucifer himself

The fallen angel is already forgiven

But refuses to come to me

Out of spite and pride.

You will leave me for pride as well

It is a very grave thing my child.

Maybe so, but I must keep the little pride I have left

I cannot forgive

I am not God

And so you will not blame me for blaming you

Unless you are not who you claim to be.

I will weep for you my child

Aye, I rather weep as well

But 'tis better to weep and retain myself

Then to smile and lose all I have left in you.

I am not Job.

I am not your pawn, your doll, your puppet.

I will not laugh when you beat me and beg for more.

I will not sing your praises while you allow dogs to tear my flesh.

I will not love that which abuses me.

I have learnt my preciousness in myself

And not from any part of you

And so I will grieve for the girl who was lost

The one who died

From your negligence.

Farewell, my sometimes spirit

When they crucified me

No angel came

And now one angel flies away

From your hands