human life as an angel is inherently cyclic. you're born from patterns, from the wings of your mothers and brothers and the sun, so theyre like air to you. breathe in, breathe out. and human life loves patterns. it soaks them in like a fat, moist sponge cake, heavy with cream and joy. it's comforting, seeing something so familiar in an otherwise unfamiliar world.
but human patterns aren't like angel ones. angels live in caustics and sines and resonance; humans run off of linear models and approximations, obsessed with grinding things down until the hardened steel under their fingertips is raw and aching. we watch, with tired eyes, a cycle of cycles: of pain and flattening and hurt and shallowness and breath knocked out of lungs and hearts broken til they don't get back up and sorrows welling under fluttering eyelashes and sobs of lovers, never to speak again. and you shoulder it. because what else can you do? it's not their fault they can't see it and it's not your fault you can.
but sometimes- and every angel can remember a time like this- it gets too heavy. the crushing pressure on your skin, the abscence of sunlight filling your lungs and gentle voices humming and feathers in your veins. you're met with cold and rough and it seems too much. and no one can see you're being crushed. and no one can feel what you feel. and no one believes you can see the cycles, or the pain, or the sorrows, or the sobs. but it's not really their fault. and, yet, now, it's somehow yours.