you could be an angel

The angels are mad because God left them, or so they say. So they wear these black leather dresses and try to rebel, but come on now, they're angels. They stand for revolution and humanity and change and love and heaven. Well ok if even heaven can dress in black leather and try to be bad, what's the point?

There's devils on the square dancing their fire dance thinking that they'll get some tips. Tip their hats to the ladies in red and they'll give 'em some change. Dance dance dance on the stones like you'll change the earth, you'll burn it to its core because you have that passion that we all sing about, read about, hear about, make movies about. I'm tired of hearing about.

Simplicity isn't okay anymore in a world of big ideas and even bigger dreams. It's all mediocrity and that scares us, admit it. You get the gravestone in the back next to someone's uncle's neighbor who died surrounded by dust and cats and you know you're not any better. Maybe that's why the angels are wearing leather, they're trying to be different.

I saw this kid the other day tap tap tapping on some girl's window, looking for red lips and fingernails that scratch his scalp and a voice that says his name like he's a god. It was sweet and I wondered how many boys were doing the same thing to a lover's window with the promise of love or, even better, sex. Love is mediocre now but sex, that's what you're supposed to want.

My window is too high up to tap on and there's even plastic on it now so if you were to tap, I wouldn't hear you. Not that I want any tapping but I'm afraid an angel dressed in leather might fly by and I won't even notice because I'm working too hard at my computer, writing papers with big ideas that are supposed to prove I'm intelligent. I wonder if you can be an angel if you're intelligent or if you just have to feel. Be one of those people that feels everything so deeply it's like you're carrying everyone's weight on your shoulders because for some reason it's your job to do so. You see those women with the hunched over backs and the whispers on their lips and you just know you hear the world's prayers in their head. There's men like that too but we never think of men as angels because angels are supposed to be beautiful. Apparently a man can't be beautiful because that would be gender confusion or something and somehow insinuate that he's gay. Even nowadays when angels can be gay, I don't know if they would want a male angel to be beautiful. He should be distinguished or handsome or something masculine.

So here I am thinking about angels and my hair is wet and my fingers are cold and I can hear the orchestra downstairs like it's in my head. I think a pianist lives in my ear and haunts me and tells me that I used to be good, but now I deserve leather angel wings and he plays in my head all the time so I can still feel like the world is beautiful, but maybe I don't deserve it anymore.