i swallow too loudly. you can hear it. everyone can hear it. i swallow too loudly and my hands are too cold and you can always see it in my eyes when i think you're full of it. vestiges of angel. i don't realize what feathers of my previous form shine through my new one. poor circulation. eye bags so dark you could smudge coal into them and no one would notice. constellations of angry red acne running rampant over my skin.

its interesting what people think is gross. i like all of my senses. i used to have a good nose a few years back. and i liked it when i could identify people by their smell. its roughhewn, human smell. like a crater twice burned, or the humidity on an incoming summer wind. we all came from swamps and mud back then. it carries through the years.

people think angels are white. they're not. well, not all of them. my kind of angels, we're the color palette. closer you get to the top the more you see white but most angels are every color under the sun. to us, every wavelength is a new color. we're patterns upon patterns upon patterns. humans can't see em but they've all got patterns too, like us. we're not so different, us and them. except we're wyld. and free.

free to feel the ripple of our muscles as we race across the celestial bodies; free to sense tastes and colors in the starstruck wind in our tussled hair. free to live. and none of them care if you swallow loud, even.