Butterfly Dreams
Commentarius: Angel Eyes
© Ilah, 2000He has the eyes of an angel.
It has been said countless times by numerous people, who, upon catching sight of his visage, will remark upon its celestial quality. They speak at length of the cherubic line of his smile, the perfect androgynous form of face and figure and the angelic beauty of hair and eyes.
I think them blind. They, who speak of the angel, do not look beyond to the demon inside.
I do not say this in hate. I love him; some would say more then I should. But I also know him as well as any may, and I have struggled against that same veil of blindness. He lures you to it - to him it is as breath, unwitting and automatic. The wraith within the angel's mask, until all you see is the empty eyes of the mask without ever knowing the mind hidden safely beneath.
The faces of angels look at us from works of art the world over, and I say to you this - he is no angel. If one stops to look beyond the mask, they will see; no angel ever had such darkened depths within their holy eyes. Sadness and fear and pain stain his eyes like ink blots upon the surface of a page, their touch destroying the text that might have been. Anger flashes there like lightning within the storm cloud, as fierce and untamed.
The mask may be as serene as any seraphim seated at God's feet, but the eyes tell the truth and they are not the eyes of an angel. Unless an angel might feel anger, might know pain and fear. Do celestial beings feel such base emotions? Myth would have us believe no.
He has the eyes of an angel, they say.
But in the depths of Hell, surrounded by the souls of the damned, the Morning Star is yet an angel. Fallen from grace, vilified and debased, he still once knelt high within the Lord's esteem, the brightest and best of all those gathered. That can not be taken from him, no matter his fall from grace. Is he not, then, still an angel?
Might his eyes not hold the pain of that descent, the regret of long ago mistakes and loss, the anger at circumstance? Angels are pure beings, we are told. But might not at least one angel's eyes reflect a loss of innocence as he gazes out across the paltry fires he was given to replace God's light?
Perhaps they are right and I am wrong. Who is to say who is the more blind? Perhaps he is an angel after all.