angel dust

Angels come in many forms.
They come in the dark, glittering and nebulous, whispers of silk and golden dreams. They come in at midnight, leave before rose-tinted dawn rises. They come from the stars, cold and impassive, yet so red-hot iron. Flashing electric blue, milky gold of faded sunshine. They come, not of kindness, not of need, not of love. But they come.
My angel.
Unyielding fire, cold as ice. Dark in the daylight, shining in the shadows. My angel, feathers of ebony, renting my silence with echoes of salvation. Light as air, fallen from grace, entangling halo-crown of bloodied thorns. Whispers of might-be's scatter at your feet.
My angel. Aegis of ice, colder than the wind that shrieks through the trees at night. O angel, how can you be so warm against me when all I see in your eyes is frigid blue? Tempestuous still yet indifferent to any lesser plight. No salvation to offer, but when a glance is a flicker of heaven, what else matters? Shreds of nightwing sable, dancing from the fiery mercury of your soul.
A paradox, my ice fire, my dry tears falling, falling away at my side. Angel, my angel, how I want to save you. Hold you in my arms but find no intangible light, only raging heat and rushing pulsing crimson. Even that is someone else. Then dark, then night and absent starlight, again the racing empty screams that echo in the silence.
It is then that I wonder, wonder what it is you feel. Overcome by the wretched void that gapes without you, I cannot help but wonder at the emptiness you have when you look at me. Is this how you feel every moment, my angel, beautiful angel of glittery starsong? Even with me, even with the light and fire and momentary salvation, instant of completion snatched away, are you but one more shadow dancing in my mind? Where is your soul, o wondrous one, where has it gone? Did I steal it from you, rob it from you in a heartbeat when the hollow emptiness shrieks too loud? Angel, angel whose soul I may have stolen but have lost anyway. There is no warmth of it, no comfort, no rescue here. I am as empty as you are, but why, why, why can we not be empty together?
Instead we suffer apart. Suffering, needing your light, while you need to seek it somewhere else. Scars of old thorns, trails of old blood, worn paths so long ago tread that they must be forgotten. Free the body but fetter the mind, shackle each trembling tendril of spirit until shadow consumes. I cannot reach you, and the night blows on.
Angel, touch of grace, ravenblack feathers I pluck every night. But you are no more mine than you have ever been, falling to fly without your wings to bind. Oh, but can I stop? Can I stop it, keep you, rebuild the gilt and golden cage of bars long since away? Who, yet, succeeds in keeping an angel? No, my angel, I think your cage is mine.
And still, still, the night is cold and long, lonely in the dark. Try to fly, beautiful, feathers falling to the dust where I stand. Dust that stirs with each breath, dust we rose from, dust that always calls us back. Yet I wonder from where you came, was it so cold amongst the clouds? Have you always been this way, icicle words and shadow of coppery crimson? Do I dream you only, every night with breath of silk and dazzling sapphire pools to drown in? Are you real, I wonder, you I call my angel?
Even then, you do not feel it. Even then, when the silence is so gaping we could fall in the chasm; you seem to see everything but me. Maybe I am your dream, your haunting nightmare. Maybe I am the one who shields you from the warmth. But oh, my beautiful savior, I would rather die with you than without.
My angel.