Almost Magdalena

Just a little song.  When my microphone works, I’ll record it.

I finished Daughter of Smoke and Bone yesterday.  It’s utterly beautiful, and I still haven’t recovered from the ending.  I haven’t finished crying.  Yes, I cry over books.  But I cry over cat food commercials.  This song is for Akiva and Karou, and Brimstone.  If you read the book, you’ll learn who Madrigal is.  It’s about love lost and found again, but the lover finds they’ve changed.  I also wrote it to get into Samael’s headspace, who is angsting over women in my story.  Though I don’t think he’d sing country, he’s an angel, so he has to sing.

 If you read the book, you’ll learn who Madrigal is.  Madrigal.  Magdalena.  I was almost Magdalena.  A lot of women are.

*

“If I were a sentimental, I’d write you a lullaby.

But I ain’t sentimental, and honey, you’re a lie.”

The Jordan runs down to the ocean,

She’s got pilgrims in her hair.

Black Madonna, don’t you wanna

Dance without a prayer?

There’s a locket in her pocket

And it says “I’m Almost There.”

She’s almost mine,

My Magdalena.

 

And I wonder what it’s like

To have a woman that is true

She’s got photographs of every sinner’s

god-damn heart she’s used.

She says “I am the Tin Girl,”

“And your heart’s enough for two.”

And I think I almost love her,

Magdalena.

 

Mama says I should’ve cursed you

You’re my siren of despair

We had it all, we had to fall,

And I looked for you everywhere

Almost with ya

Could’ve missed ya

You beautiful nightmare.

God sinned when he made you

Magdalena.

 

The moon sails high and fills sky

Why does it give a damn?

There’s a white flag on my front door

Warnin’ “Pretty Girls Beware,”

‘Cause the wolf inside will eat ya

And I don’t really care

About those eyes, just like starlight

And the flowers in your hair…

God damn you, Magdalena.

 

Long ago I almost loved you

Almost had you, guess I lost you

You’re my Lady of Sorrows,

So lay me down.

In a field white with roses

Where the morning star reposes

We’ll make love, like we used to

I’ll make angels fall like rain.

 

Mama said I shoulda cursed you

I wish I didn’t care.

I bet my heart and lost you,

Magdalena.

Adolescent Archangel

“I’m terminal for you,” Samael said.

It was a good thing he didn’t have to manifest in his true form, which would be a humongous floating ass.

*

So in a few months, Samael turns eight.

I have been writing him since middle school.  Sweet Mother of God, have mercy.

I am going to finish today with 200 pages of manuscript.  I have hundreds more from subsequent years, and over twenty notebooks filled with my story, starting from age 12.  ’Tis a bit scary.

Though my parents doubt me, I am determined to finish this novel.  Because Byron was 19 when he wrote Childe Harold, Mary Shelley was 17 when she wrote Frankenstein, and Byron was a sociopathic prick.  Like Shelley, we are better than him.  Byron really annoys me.  So does Samael.  I usually write about things I don’t like.

The sooner this is over, the sooner I can move on with my life and write new, shinier stories.

But somehow, I feel like I’ll be stuck with this one for, well, ever.

The Light of God

I dream of him again: pale blue eyes, long tawny hair like a lions’ mane with a single braid.

The angel whose name I do not know.  Perhaps I conjured him in my head.

I am made in his image, could pass as his sister.  We share the same eyes.  The same golden hair and skin.  Strong like hunters.  Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I am leonine.

Like him, I look stupid when I smile.  I’ve always been more beautiful when I glare.

We laze in a field, watching the stars, and their milky light tint his wings cerulean.  He smiles that lazy smile, so bright it could illuminate the world.  I feel perfect protection and bliss as we whisper by the campfire.  I can’t think of a place better than this, not in all the worlds.  He laughs, and it sounds like summer.

He’s wearing angelic garb for once, rich robes a few shades darker than the fuchsia that bloom around us.  It is strikingly different from his battle garb: a white tunic with leather sandals and his hair slicked back in a loose braid like some Celtic warrior.  Usually he hates fancy clothes.  I plait the blossoms into his hair, doting on him, and he humors me, cracking jokes all the while.

“You’re wearing purple?” I ask.  ”Isn’t that a bit girly?”  It was my favorite color in childhood, which he knows.

He pulls away from me before I can finish his braid.  The bells of fuschia rain in a storm of petals.  He laughs and catches me in his arms, like some teasing brother.  He makes me sit on the log.

“Purple is the color of kings.”  He puffs his chest out, almost preening.  ”It has the strength of red and purity of blue.  Purple is luxurious.  It’s the color of nobility and power.  Purple is the color of balance.”

He plucks some bluebells and makes me sit in front of him.

“I had to go through your torture.  It is your turn now,” he says, braiding the blossoms into my hair.  When he’s done, I race to the river, admiring his work.  He smiles goofily over my shoulders.

“I’m a master, no?”

“You always were a kid at heart,” I laugh.  ”You look like an elf.”

He feigns offense, knowing there are fey in the woods.  ”I’m much more beautiful than an elf,” he objects, preening.  The fey talk darkly about the haughty angels, and we laugh at their scorn.  One throws acorns at us, so we just throw them at each other.

Something else distracts us, and we go running barefoot through the valley grass.  The land curls like a bowl for the moon.  Puffy clouds sail like ships above, and he looks at the sky, wings flexing anxiously.  He could be Michaelangelo’s carving, and the supple muscle yearns for the sky.  Like his wings, he’s flighty.

“Let’s fly.  To somewhere.  Anywhere.”

“You’ll drop me.  I’m too big now!”

“I won’t.”

And so we do.

I ask him his name that night.  But he dances around my questions.  Just like he always does.

He is my mercy and light.  Maybe it’s fitting he wears purple, the highest of colors.

They say Uriel’s colors are purple and gold.  That he is the Fire, the Light of God.  They say he has another face: Ariel, the Lion of the Lord, the angel whose name I share.

Uriel means Sun of God, God’s star.  Uriel is Venus.  The Morning Star.  Like him, I am vain.

Some say he reigns in Hell.

I don’t know who the angel is, as he’s never told me.  Maybe names don’t matter, in the end.   I’ve always seen him as celestial fire, lightning.  Heavenly yellows and blues.

But violet, highest of colors, roles into red, the lowest and most wretched.  The color of poison and fear.  My lion leaves, and the other angel comes, later that night.

His color is crimson, stripped of heavenly blue.  He never gives any hints.  But I remember another dream.  We walked in a garden together.  A vine of purple crocus brushed his robe.  Startled, he looked down at it, and a sudden look of pain came over him.

He stared transfixed at the color, somber.  He wouldn’t speak to me, wouldn’t move for almost an hour.  Caught in some private reverie that dredged his face raw like the bottom of some abyssal sea.

“Samael,” I said, picking apart a daisy, whining and bored.  ”Can we go?…”

His face was like bone, and it silenced me.

Some say he lost his light.  Sometimes I wonder if it’s still there.  If he longs for it.

“To all dose of you who think angels have to look a cwertain way: Eat my shworts.”

Christopher Walken on SNL as the mulleted Angel of Death.

The Greater Sage Grouse

The Marvelous Spatuletail

Derp Birds of Death

Say hello to Gog and Magog, Samael’s derp birds of death.  They sit on his shoulders and crap on his robe.  He chose them for the their colors, not practicality.

Sadly, because he is Death, little kids tend to bawl their eyes out when Boniface comes a’ knocking.  The birds are supposed to distract them and make Death more endearing.  Then he bribes them with candy.  Candy of questionable origin.

You’d expect Gog and Magog to be magical, but they’re not.  Samael tried to train them, but all they can do so far is find inventive ways to steal his vodka.  He got drunk one night and thought he’d like birds like Hugin and Munin, and in his drunkenness made them, so they too are alcoholics.

Sometimes Gog steals the Keys to Hell and tries to make nests with them, which doesn’t go so well for the angels.  Magog thinks his skull is an egg and tries to incubate it.  Otherwise they just peck him clean of the maggots he’s so fond of…

Gog the Crimson Fruitcrow

Magog the Redwinged Blackbird

“DERP!” I say.  ”DERP!”

The Spirit of the Fear of the Lord

I am the one you loathe

The one who judges and damns

Through gall and scythe and sword

Or perhaps a simple kiss

to the brow, like my disciple.

 

Cry a river for me.

‘Cause there are blood stains on my hands

And angel, I cannot be rid of them

 

Without them,

perhaps you will love me.

The Seven Spirits of God

They are Seven.

He is One.

The serpent that bites its tail.

Devouring Itself

“You know nothing of God, Jakkon!”

“Is that what dear Raziel told you?” Jakkon asked, tweaking her nose. “What a precious girl. Did he also tell you that nephelim filth were exterminated by our Father? That you’re a stain on God’s creation? Born from the lust of an angel.”

He smiled, whispering into her ear. “I have stood at the edge of Creation. I have walked in His burning light. There is no God, nephelim. Not for I or you.”

Icarus Dreams

Icarus dreams he cannot awake

The nightmare of the wings that are his only mistake

Here’s what we’ll do, here’s what we’ll try

Throw yourself out there and hope that you’ll fly.

Icarus flew, Icarus fell

The brave and the broken ring every bell

The beating heart and the fragile shell

Icarus fell, Icarus fell