I.
First angel: younger,
hair the color of wheat before harvest,
wings still learning their own weight.
He stands on the tower’s lip
where stone remembers hands that laid it.
The book is open like a wound
that hasn’t decided whether to heal.
His eyes—
two small dawns
trying not to blink.
II.
Second angel: older,
hair gone the white of ash after fire,
wings folded like closed libraries.
He stands on nothing but cloud,
a rock that forgot it was earth.
The book is heavier now,
pages thick with names
that have already been crossed out.
His eyes—
two quiet graves
where questions go to rest.
III.
Between them:
a century of silence
stretched like wire.
One reads the beginning,
the other the end,
and neither looks up
to see the other
is the same face
aged by the same light.
IV.
You watch from the third floor,
fan spinning,
phone at 19%,
generator coughing below.
The angels do not see you.
They never do.
But you see them—
two mirrors
reflecting the same lie:
that height is wisdom,
that wings are escape,
that a book can hold
what a pulse already knows.
V.
Truth:
they are both you.
One before the fall,
one after.
The tower is your spine.
The cloud is your breath.
The book is your hunger.
The wings—
just the ache
to be somewhere else
while staying exactly here.
First angel: younger,
hair the color of wheat before harvest,
wings still learning their own weight.
He stands on the tower’s lip
where stone remembers hands that laid it.
The book is open like a wound
that hasn’t decided whether to heal.
His eyes—
two small dawns
trying not to blink.
II.
Second angel: older,
hair gone the white of ash after fire,
wings folded like closed libraries.
He stands on nothing but cloud,
a rock that forgot it was earth.
The book is heavier now,
pages thick with names
that have already been crossed out.
His eyes—
two quiet graves
where questions go to rest.
III.
Between them:
a century of silence
stretched like wire.
One reads the beginning,
the other the end,
and neither looks up
to see the other
is the same face
aged by the same light.
IV.
You watch from the third floor,
fan spinning,
phone at 19%,
generator coughing below.
The angels do not see you.
They never do.
But you see them—
two mirrors
reflecting the same lie:
that height is wisdom,
that wings are escape,
that a book can hold
what a pulse already knows.
V.
Truth:
they are both you.
One before the fall,
one after.
The tower is your spine.
The cloud is your breath.
The book is your hunger.
The wings—
just the ache
to be somewhere else
while staying exactly here.
