Lucifer

This is my work at the beginning, then close of last night.

Lucifer. I was painting this man with a furtive desperate glance and thinking maybe he was a somewhat exhausted angel, and maybe he was kind of a she and she was kind of a he. So I went on painting like that... and who should appear but a someone who got left out.

It was late at night when I looked at him and saw, "Oh. You're Lucifer?" and I said to him, "Well, I don't really know you. What are you like?" Immediately I saw freaky things in my minds eye with wild grotesque heads, bulls, dripping mucousy hatred spilling off of a too-vividly blue and blooded tormented face. I leaned over with my head in the sink. "Thanks," I whispered, "That's enough for now." I felt his torment from being ignored, cast away, and how that slight has been echoing throughout our us. Before asking about him I had thought that Lucifer and the Devil were two different beings. How could a beautiful angel fall that far into misery? I read once in middle school that Hell is horrible because in Hell there is no love. And hence no God. I see that it's not that Lucifer made a Hell up; he is there as a figurehead for the horror, for the anguish... that is dismissal. Yesterday I read an article about teenage sex habits. It said that it's the young women and men who are somewhat lost with low hopes for their future that are the ones who don't use contraceptives. Big surprise.

Once I was at a party with the cool people in high school (I wasn't usually invited to them, but my date to the dance was in the crowd). I was sitting in a tightly crowded living room on the couch talking to Matt, who was older than me and plenty goofy. I was staring up at the ceiling for a bit, and then I lowered my head... and there was no one there! The house had totally cleared out in moments! Except for Matt next to me. I asked, "What the... what just happened?" I didn't hear a thing, but everyone was gone! He said, "Oh, this is when they go outside and smoke pot, etc." I went quiet because I didn't want to reveal my level of clueless-ness. We both just sat there. AWK-ward. Later everyone comes streaming into the house, rolling and lolling with smoothness and smiles. I had a good friend in fifth grade, and we would go to the beach together. She was so pretty and when she talked to you she would hold your arm like a little child. Somewhere around the age of 13 she started taking some drugs, and then some other kinds of drugs. I don't know what kind, but I could guess. Her eyes became different and I could see her shudder sometimes in seventh grade science class. Whatever she was doing after school, she needed that, in a way... but I knew then that she needed it because she wasn't getting something she needed more. So anyways, she was at that party: this once dear friend who I still saw everyday, Monday through Friday, yet hadn't spoken to in years. Not because we were ignoring each other, but because there was nothing to say. When the crowd rolled back into the house, she came in too, and as she approached me maybe I was a bit surprised. She leaned into my face eye to eye and said strongly with wide eyes, "Shannon McCarthy, if you ever touch this shit, I will kill you." I shall never forget her kindness.