I’m a fallen angel,

Out of heaven, into hell,

Dipped in sin—

The kind that seeps in—

Tarnished and tainted…

…poets’ and masters’ painted.

Coffee and a cigarette,

Sex—the kind you can’t forget—

Black in dress until I unclothe.

Learn to love moments like those—

Because they happen often—

Do as I do, let’s begin.

We can share this single pillow,

I love thee dearly, inebriated bed-fellow.

I may sketch you while you sleep,

As Sun’s rays invasive creep.

Though I love, I can’t stay long,

But I leave a pick, a guitar, and a song.

She wasn’t very tall or spectacularly built. Or anything really.

She was just there.

I’d remembered her from a few years ago. She left after middle school, not that any of us were surprised. She was odd. Always wearing some long, pleasantly skirt, but the moment that they went mainstream she stopped. She wrote constantly. She scrambled song lyrics and sang them really loudly in the hallway, bathroom, gym class, etc.

I liked her then.

Now the year was beginning to dawn Senior. This was our time. It was time for everything to go my way before college came to take me to my future. Class? I’d skip it if I wanted... well, I’d’ve liked to think so at least. I was a senior, and that meant I was above the rules. She had also come back that last, fateful year. And unlike me, she was confident in her rule-breaking. I’m not sure it even occurred to her that administration frowned upon such individuals and activities. I watched her in the hall the first day of school. I had felt like a bad-ass, shoving the freshies around a bit before class. One of them dropped their massive stack of books as I passed. I looked back to survey the damage and there she was. Stooped down next to the new kid from Wisconsin. She lifted his belongings into his Batman messenger bag with slow, steady grace. He was flushed and appreciative. She offered to show him to class. Her eyes were deep and brown like a luscious coffee bean. They turned to me slowly. She glared at me and my retreating posse. As if I’d done something wrong. As luck would have it, she was in my first class. Government. I sat there, reclined and as comfortable as one could be in those confining desks. She sat in the back of the class. She did not speak much, but when she did it was always either revolution or sarcasm. I waited for the drops of passion to fall from her lips. I lapped them up, writing them in the margins of my papers and notebooks.

Throughout the day we had four classes together. Government, gym, lunch, and honors choir. In gym, she wore black pants over her uniform. Her Chuck Taylors had lace on them, and acrylic bubbles. She hated gym, but she was very competitive. She had a friend in that class. The class outcast-slut. Nobody wanted her around. But my fallen angel did. They laughed and talked all period, about sex. I knew because I’d always listen. She liked sex, a lot. She always spoke of someone new. Boys and girls. Her mantra was that she’d be their lover, but they couldn’t keep her for long, as she belonged only to herself. It confused and intrigued me. She was an island. So young, and yet so confident in her decisions about love, and life. Nearly everything she did was beautiful, the way she moved. The way she’d look down when in the hallway, but in the quiet of the library, she’d be okay again. She never liked large gatherings of people. She preferred to go out for another cigarette.

She borrowed a lighter from me once. I saw her, out of school, at a coffeehouse. She was searching her Van Gogh “Night Café” bag for a light, a delicate black cigarette between her lips. I held mine out to her and she partook of my fire. We talked over those black, clove cigarettes in the alley. She smiled more out of school. All the superficiality, she told me, made her afraid for the future of the students. She thought it would take truckloads of anti-depressants to get them through their first year of college.

Fallen angels know a little about a lot of things. I highly recommend getting to know one. She had tantric sex with me in the alley. My mind went, I couldn’t think of anything but the rhythm of our breathing and the way she was stroking my wrists. It was the rebirth of my love for her.

I told her as much after a month or two of pining. She agreed that she loved me as well. I was thrilled. Hairs stood up on my neck. She calmly spoke poetry in my ears, her lips moving, breathy, against them. It seemed easy to her, as if she were designed to fall from heaven to love men and women on earth. A perfect entity of love and emotion. She knew what she was doing and did it well.

But she was not to be taken lightly. There were shadows in the darkness that surrounded her. First there were the sudden streaks of red across her wrists, covered by wristbands with logos for bands I’d never heard of. She’d left school a few times, returning three periods later, smelling like wine and sex. Or what I thought sex smelled like, at least. And illicit smoke, on occasion. She fought sometimes, wearing her wounds, uncovered. Marks of passion, or of enmity, it didn’t matter. She hid nothing.

Warm weather finally came. She was happier. I told her just how much I wanted to talk with her again. We had coffee and cigarettes in a tiny diner. She told me how winter always brought her down. When the warmth returns, she said, everything is beautiful again in my mind and all around me. I leaned over and kissed her. I’d never kissed anyone before, though I told everyone I had. She kissed me back, warmly, softly, wetly. I wanted to keep her for always. Then three guys and a girl walked in. They looked at me, absolutely enraged. She introduced us all. The tallest was dark and ferociously handsome. She paid special attention to him. They all were well-aware of her love’s style, accept this One. He never chased her—very subtly if ever—but she always brightened when he was around. One night, he lit her cigarette and whispered in her ear while she inhaled. She looked stunned and quoted something back at him. He kissed her neck so gently, the skin barely shifted.

My head spun, my jealously flared. He kissed my angel, my fallen angel! Right in front of me. Why? Was there something between them I couldn’t see clearly?

The diner was warm. He removed his coat, lifting his sleeve a little to reveal a tattoo. On his left arm was the infamous icon of Michael and Lucifer. That was when I understood. They were alike. Both, the fallen angels, stared into each others’ eyes. She, with full knowledge of his style. He, with full knowledge of her past and present. Me, with only the lingering memory of her kiss. The taste of her cigarette was still on my mouth, sweet and spicy. Like her.

Much of my time was devote to her after that night. I was obsessed with the thought of possibility. In gym, kick ball, she talked to her friend yet again. The one constant in their discussion was Him. He was the stable that linked everything. She was attracted to people like her. Confident, rebellious, bad-ass, hardcore but genuinely good people. He plagued her mind and she masochistically let him. She could have had others, many others by then as the rest of the school caught the clue train. But she didn’t. Why? Could she not see the dozens before her, waiting for their turn?

It was Him. He paused everything. He’d put up a feeble, inconsequential fence to keep her at bay. And it had worked. She could see beneath the surface and like what she found. Or so she said. My fallen angel had the power to wield words, shape her own mind, as all good Scorpios can. I haven’t got that power. I wish I had had the confidence to command myself then. But I didn’t. I started smoking, hanging out at more coffeehouses. That’s where I met my wife. She was a mutual friend to my fallen angel. Ex-girlfriend of her One. And hers, too. The bi-sexual life-style became second nature to me though I never slept with those boyfriends. My angel shaped my life, showed me the worldly world outside that shelter of a school. I lived for the first time with her. I am grateful.

And I never stopped living.