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The angel reaches in my coat in a crack between the buttons of my shirt into a scab I haven’t stopped picking into the interveinal meat separating skin from ribs through my ribcage and into my heart. The times are all-inclusive, overcooked, going nowhere, are up against the wall, are fighting a monster in the dark, are really bumming me out. I sigh and the angel gives a look like, what’s the weather, bay bay? So, I karate kick apathy over a high, blue hill. Meanwhile, on the news, rioters break voter registration cards over the backs of statues, the marble practically screaming, reminding everyone what a lean, long thing the world once was. “Should I cry? Would that make it any easier?” the angel mocks, moving to whisper something apocryphal I won’t understand. “All I want is love,” I say, and attempt a heroic motion the angel will recognize as bountiful, except what comes out is a mild draping of my body over their winged shoulder and a whimper.
