My Angel's Return Poem by Peter Timothy McQueeny

After an ocean of time, my angel returned to me

We were due for a night on the town
And we found a place to party down
The touch was everywhere
Air oily with the taste of it
The walls were full of inconsiderate cracks
The floors sticky with spills
People sunk into the lower corners of the room
Her eyes were alive with wonder
Swimming in a sea of garbage
My frantic worry of no consequence

There was a room
A room of syringes and powders
Burnt spoons and mirrors
Greasy hair covering unwashed faces
A glass trash collage adorning every horizontal
Her veins were opened to them
And they took her as one of their own
The sickness gave me pain and the pain made me sick
The cycle fed itself
It is the food

There was a room
All was needles, yet not the first tubular kind
Theirs were thick, heated with lighters
They delved deeply into flesh
Some screamed with pleasure, others pain
The wielders sick with pleasure
The victims pleased with their sickness
But there were nothing but victims
The cycle fed itself
She became their food

And suddenly I was with my family
I slipped through a closed door and found a clean room
Fresh pine tree decorated with seasonal cheer
Children running, parents cautioning
Paper tearing and ribbons tossed aside
All was joy, sophisticated drinks in hand
Wrinkled faces smiling on others stretched wide with joy
Talk bouncing back and forth, though not like in the junk sea
We were still surrounded by it, we were in THEIR house
And yet here was clean, here is soft, here will be quiet

I went outside this room, back to the screaming needles
My father followed and he saw her
He took his opportunity, sat with the filth
Took up a needle and gently slid it through my angel’s cheek
My father joined with the ocean of pain
He had forgotten the clean room, he was concerned with her
And in a father’s secret way, me
Something he said, it sparked a white hot point in her
And I saw the sadness grip her heart, though I heard not the words
She left the room, left the house

Hours I spent searching, calling to the streets
Again sick, this worry for her
My father had done me a favor
He had hurt her out of there, whatever was said
She never saw the clean room, but it was a favor to me all the same
Whatever it was, she had climbed out of the ocean
And my father had looked at me as if to say
“I don’t know what it is, but your chance is now.”
So I followed
And I found her, just before it was too late

She was in the grass, totally unaware
All memories were beginning to fade
I took her into my arms. She was lighter than I remembered
I heard the song of her as I marched the miles to her house
The broken angel in my arms drove me to tears
Her skin was softer than fresh snow, and of approximately the same hue
Her frame so delicate, her hair so short,
If a seraphim came to earth
And was made captive in a mental hospital
I believe it would look like the creature in my arms

Just before I ascended the stairs to her place, she awoke
There was little to say.
The last thing she remembered was forgetting everything
And when she looked at me
All I could see were here eyes
They were screaming at me
Her eyes were screaming:

I DON’T LOVE YOU
I DON’T LOVE YOU
I DON’T LOVE YOU

Now how can I love anything?