Lucifer Falls to Earth in the Body of a Middle-Schooler

The angel sits on speckled linoleum and pleads for forgiveness amid skid marks and blackened rocks of saliva and gum. He did not mean to fall. All he did was wonder through windows at another world. He would look out at the dancing creatures, admiring their clumsiness and lack of grace. And then in an instant — Bam. His eyes had overbalanced and so he crash-landed in the world's rivers of fury. Every limb bashed against sky on his way down as he grasped at air, bang bang bang. His shredded skin weeps, now, painting the ground the color of a burning sky. But the children of heaven are blind to its beauty as they gaze with scorn upon his mangled garments. His brethren scoff at his crumpled form, Foolish victim of his own misguidance, And his pleas hear only distant laughter, a reminder of a time before windows were mirrors. So he learns. He learns the thing that pounds inside him is a heart. He learns his mouth can: speak sing (out of tune) smile (too wide) swallow bite after bite throw all of it up whisper secrets and scream unheard for help. He learns some noises hurt. He learns that when the sun arcs once across the sky, this is a day. When the sky goes dark between one day and the next, this is a night. His body will last for approximately thirty thousand days. After that, he will die. When he learns this he also learns that liquid can crawl down his face from his eyes. He watches the sun arc its days across the sky. The bones inside him stretch into the shape of an adult. He discovers that other creatures want to put parts of themselves inside of him. This never happened to him in Heaven. New hairs creep from his skin, and it erupts in tiny red volcanoes in revenge. He discovers that sometimes liquid leaks between his thighs and if he moves his hand just right it makes a feeling no one else can know about. It is strange, this way of being alone. One day, he trips over shoelaces and his face meets a galaxy of tiny black rocks. He is startled to remember it's his second fall. One day he burns his lungs pretending to like the taste of poison. Later the same day, he discovers how much he likes how poison makes him feel. One day in the dark another mouth starts to eat his own And he discovers for the first time what saliva tastes like. After that, he can't remember whether it was dark or light in Heaven. He forgets a lot of things. What language angels spoke. Whether they had wings. After enough days, he forgets what Heaven was like. He learns to call it Hell, this place where he landed. But he never forgets watching from his windows, how he used to love it, the land of dancing creatures. And maybe, maybe it wasn't such an accident after all.