The Angel and the Demon on My Shoulders are Married
There’s an angel on one shoulder, and a demon on the other. Opposites, two sides of a coin, a constant push and pull against what I want and what I should.
Or not. Sometimes they’re there, but sometimes they fuck off to the Ritz, or they both sit on one side. The demon sleeps a lot, mussing up his red hair, or sometimes her red hair, or their, or, or, or-
The angel likes it any way.
They’re not opposites, not really, but they help me still, when they aren’t bickering about what they ate that one time in Germany before it was called Germany.
What should I do in life? I ask
What is good, says the angel.
What you love, says the demon.
Make them the same thing then, the angel says with a smile. The demon calls him a sap, but he loves the good so, so much, so it doesn’t sting.
Make sure you eat well, and eat things you enjoy
Get enough sleep. Sometimes you need to just pass out, and look at things again in the morning.
Gender is fake, the demon explains, pulling her hair into a bun.
But so is justice, and mercy, and weekends, says the angel, so pick the things that work for you and that you want to see in the world.
Steal all the genders, agrees the demon.
That Is Not What I Meant You Know That-
It’s too late, I’ve nicked another, and the demon holds their hand out and offers me chipped nail polish, or an abandoned suit jacket, or just the feeling of children loudly asking their parents what I am on a crowded subway.
The angel rolls his eyes. We create the world we want to live in, he says, and we are of that world, so we create ourselves. And just the same, in loving ourselves as we are, we love the world as it can be.
You’ve been reading too many poetry books, said the demon.
Maybe he has been, but I appreciate that sometimes straight up prose cannot contain the things I feel in the universe, and so I dip into the well of pretty purple prose and use it to punch holes into new perspectives.
I want to make sure the people I care about know I love them, I say. My therapist had me take the Love Language quiz.
The angel and the demon laugh. Five? asks the demon. Are there only five colors when you paint?
Only five elements to make up the universe? asked the angel.
Of course you bring up chemistry, angel, mutters the demon.
The point stands.
I suppose it does, I say.
The demon sighs. You show love by being there when you’re needed, she says. And by not being there when what’s needed is distance.
Love is stored in looks, and laughs, and slowing down your car when I scream, even if it’s only a little, says the angel. The demon laughs, xer eyes glinting mischievously.
Love is touch, is holding doors, is sending funny pictures at 2am. It is inside laughter, tears, screams, groans, and sighs.
Sometimes, love is a tartan thermos of certain death and last, desperate chances at protection. It’s knowing when you need to slow down, and when you need to speed up, says the angel.
Even if it changes, even if there’s hard times, or breaks and cracks, it endures. It fights back when people try to tear it from your grasp, it destroys barriers that keep you apart, and therefore keep you back, away from you.
It can’t always be snogging at St. James Park, says the demon.
The angel raises the eyebrows. Do you want to snog at St. James Park?
Absolutely not, not my scene, says the demon. Besides, wouldn’t want the ducks to see me like that.
Oh good, that’s not my scene either. Remembering I’m there, the angel adds, That’s love too. Knowing it comes in all shapes and sizes and actions. There is no one thing that must be present, no one way to show or do or experience it.
I ask that we stop talking about snogging, as it’s not my scene either. They agree.
I know I see the world differently, I know I want different things from myself and others. And I know it’s ok, and I know I have people. But sometimes, it feels like I’ll still end up by myself, a stray thought wondering what I was up to before being forgotten again.
Well, says the demon thoughtfully, you’ll always have us. And the other characters you drag from the shows and weave into the tapestry that is you.
I believe the term is Bebop from my shows says the angel.
It absolutely is not. Stop guessing what bebop is, angel.
Whatever we are, you’ll have others too. Every time you live as you want to, every time you tell people how you love, how you see the world, you carve out more space for you and people like you. And people who insist differently, that there are only certain ways to structure your life, they are missing out.
Believe me, says the demon. You will not be forgotten by anyone who knows you. You are colorful, you are movement and words and humanity. Formed from stardust, and the things you and the people you love are doing are going to make a supernova, from which a new world can and will be born.
Now who’s read too many poetry books, says the angel.
The demon shrugs and points at me. I am the one writing them into a poem, so, fair.
You’re doing good, says the angel.
Keep giving them hell, the good kind, says the demon.
Love fiercely, love often, we are a love story and so are you, they say.
I smile. I say thank you.
And I ask the demon to stop gluing pennies to my shoulder.
This is a poem I wrote about queer angels and demons, what they and the show mean to me as a nonbinary, aroace person, and how media gets folded into who we are. It's weird and personal, the format is fucky. I just wanted to get it out there. cheers!
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Earth Song
Sometimes, in my dreams,
I swear I can hear the earth before.
Before the noise around me grew so large covering my ears was normal.
Before cars and horns and planes and phones became background noise,
Even before trains.
I want to hear the earth sing the way it was meant to,
Before everyone decided to mess with it,
To cover it up.
I wonder how spiritual it would be
To be in a field
Where birds and insects that no longer roam fly and buzz.
Where there was nothing in the distance,
Not a couple miles away from a house or road.
To be sure there was no false hum in the chorus
To be able to see all the stars like we were meant to.
I love this life, as awful and cruel as it is I love it
I cannot imagine a life where I cannot tell my soulmate how much I love him as much as I’d like
But is that the issue?
Is life meant to have so much commodity?
So many choices?
So many bigger pictures?
I hope it’s not the issue.
But sometimes I wonder if my heart yearns for a village.
A type of love mostly lost.
I love the stars, but I fear somewhere in the back of my brain that we were not meant to know them up close.
I wonder if I’d be up all night with worry in a different time.
How much of who I am is synthetic?
Is it sad to hope my ancestors also struggled?
Is it sad to be jealous, when all they wanted was to be more?
Maybe they didn’t need to be more.
I don’t want to think about it.
I want to sit in a field with my soulmate. I want to plant my roots. I want to look at the stars, and listen to the song.
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Sometimes when I hike alone, it's a little bit like romance. And honestly, why shouldn't it be?
In spring, my love brings me flowers in every color I've read about but never seen, and bashfully, I may accept a dandelion or two as the birds sing melodies felt in the marrow.
And in Summer, my love brings me tart black raspberries and sweet pawpaws. I am adoringly cleansed in rushing waters before I get to dance, sweating and giddy among the fireflies.
Oh, and autumn! In autumn my lover puts on their finest clothes of colorful leaves and gentle fogs, and as I am serenated by crickets, I realize by the flow of my blood and the sharpness of my teeth that I am in love.
And in winter the soil and trees are laid bare, yet even underneath a blanket of crisp clean snow, I must admit that I am warmed and impressed by the thickness of the bushes and the stature of the wood.
Of course, in the timeframe of stones and and antlers grown and antlers fallen, there was a whirlwind in this romance, along with gentle breeze and passionate storms, but it's not as swift or ungrounded as you may imagine.
You see, I had for years cried out my woes in glades, explored caves in pleasure, spoke evening wonderments to the stars, and so my lover already knew me in ways that made me ecstatic in my own skin.
Nature already knew all my secrets, and now I drink dark wine as they share their secrets with me.
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