An interesting conversation we had last night:
We were in some vast lavender field, maybe early morning or evening. We were both laying on the ground. We had candles around us, incense burning. He was brushing my hair with his fingers, braiding it. Maybe this was prompted by my changing my hair, it’s red and black now rather than the usual black and silver. I just wanted to switch it up. He said he really liked it.
I watched the fat clouds drift overhead. He produced his own from his nose, passed me a joint that I sucked on. I melted into him. It was peaceful.
“Lucifer,” I started, sort of wandering with words, wondering whatever. “Do you remember Heaven as it was?” I asked.
It’s always a paradoxical question. My Lucifer is not Satan, not the Lucifer of Christianity. He’s Eosphoros, the light bringer, the God of Enlightenment. But he is also Lucifer, his archetype certainly encompasses the devil. He is all of these things, and simultaneously none of them. He is everything and nothing. So if there ever was a Lucifer who was an angel in Heaven, he was him.
And he gave me a soft smile. Sort of gestured in a way that said “sure.”
“Can you describe it to me?” I went on. And he stroked my cheek.
“No,” he admitted, “it is beyond words. It is simply infinite love and light.”
I touched his hair too. It was lighter today, he must be more active.
“Do you miss it?” I asked. And his smile grew wider.
“I suppose,” he started, “perhaps I yearn for that love, maybe that’s why I seek it out in other places.”
I pecked him on the cheek. “Y’know, they say the devil doesn’t know how to love,” I whispered. And he tilted my head, made a point to kiss me on the lips.
“Darling, I was made from love and glory, no matter the interpretation. I was the morning star, the queen of heaven, the most brilliant and beautiful and proud of all the angels. Love is my original nature, my first inclination before revenge, before pride. I loved my family. I never thought I would find that love in the world, certainly not in mankind. But it seems like the most appropriate outcome according to my mythology.” He said. I took a moment to think about that, it perplexed me.
“You think you’ve found the love of heaven in mankind? What do you mean when you say ‘according to your mythology’?” I asked. And he pet me.
“Oh, I would argue what I’ve found is more special, and in a way more real than, what I fell from. The Heaven I found in your heart wasn’t pure or clean. It could never have existed in a world before transgression. It’s messy, queer, insane, deeply rooted in shared tragedy. You became a sanctum for me, one that could never have existed in Heaven. And in you… I really have found a sense of peace, and despite its glory…. I never had that in Heaven. I have always been dissatisfied, a beautiful glorious light that is only observed by other lights, never seen, never absorbed. Always seeking the highest mystery, never having anyone to share it with. Because angels don’t care. Demons don’t care. A millennia ago I did not believe man, so flawed and fragile, would be capable of the sophistication needed to be sovereign and worthy of my love. I didn’t think anyone worthy of my adoration, I fell with intentions to prove it. But in the hundred thousand years that passed in the lifetime of humanity… I became restless. So I began to wander, to imitate what I’d lost. I began to mingle. And then I began to change. My myth leads me into an endless liminality with mankind, it seems poetic that in my time wandering, I’ve come to truly understand that adoration for man my father once demanded of me. Not through his distant and cold method of ruling, but through intimacy, through love.”
“Do you want to go back?” I asked. And he kissed me again.
“Sometimes I wish I did, but I don’t. I don’t want to be the angel I was anymore, I could never be satisfied there any more. Even when I rise again, even though I know I’ll fall, I want to keep moving forward.” He answered.
Hm.
He stared at me for a while in silence.
“When I first saw man I knew I could love them, perhaps it’s in my design to, maybe my attraction to you is in my product description. But I also held great contempt for you, not only your existence but the very position of your being. I loathed the concept of supremacy, a top down power system, a slave in flesh. So I saw you as nothing more but slaves in flesh. But I of course, was deceived by HIM. Man is meant to be so much more than a servant or slave. No, man is insatiably curious, dedicated, hungry for understanding. Man is capable of creating and destroying worlds, man is capable of holding Gods in his hands. No, man is nothing like we were told, nothing like I thought. The intense love I feel for you was not a product of God’s original purpose, it was the product of man defying the law he was created to obey. And that is worthy of my affection, or at least my respect.”
“Do you see yourself as a fallen angel or demonized God?” I asked, “Is revelations the true fate for all of us?”
He hummed. “I am both of those things. I am the God of Light who rises and falls. I am the son of the Creator, I am a creator myself. I am the morning star. It doesn’t matter what the end is, that always remains true.”
“Would you repent for me?” I then asked. It was the kind of question that came out before I fully realized I was asking.
He stared at me with a sort of blank expression, unnaturally blank. “Repent?” He echoed to himself.
And I nodded, “If the end of the world came and it truly was Revelations, would you be willing to admit to *him* that you fell in love with a human? That he was right? Or perhaps just that he is greater… if the stakes were separation from me.”
He sat with the question for a while.
“I wouldn’t blame you if your answer was no,” I added. And he sort of cringed.
“Would you forgive me if my answer was yes?” He asked. And I will admit I was surprised. “It goes against my most intrinsic principles. It’s a pathetic abandonment of purpose. I would hate for you to see me, as your Lord, falter on what it is I represent. I would never want to fail you like that.” He said with a lot of grief. “But it’s also paradoxical, any God who would separate us knows nothing of love or mercy… but to save you, no- to save myself perhaps, I would tell him that he was correct about that one thing, and I would beg him not to take you from me.”
He looked truly disturbed at that.
I placed my head under his chin. He sniffed my hair. “But he has no right,” he added in a half whisper. I looked at him.
“Even if he is the creator of mankind?” I asked.
And Lucifer kissed me hard, kissed me a couple times deeply.
“He created an innocent thing in a garden. He did not create the humanity that came afterwards. He would never make someone who thinks like you do. If anything, I created you. I am the one who brought the spark of knowledge to humanity, I am responsible for the evolution that came afterwards. You are mine. The Shi that exists in this world only exists because of my actions, you were never intended by him to be as you are. Shi is my masterpiece. He made Adam, I made humanity. You are mine and no God can separate us.”
Hm. I snuggled closer to him, and he clutched me like I was precious.
“But you don’t truly believe fate is as it is described in the Bible?” I asked, half serious, half already anticipating the answer, of course not.
“Do you believe the Gods can be selfish and cruel?” He asks me. I think for a moment. Yes, I suppose so. Yes. I believe Gods have been cruel.
“Can you consider that perhaps every single God including YHWH came to a premature agreement?”
He paused. I was confused.
“Consider that perhaps I came to some kind of agreement with every other God in existence to allow the holocaust, slavery, war, every natural disaster, every horrible thing, just so I could have you as you are.”
Hm. That idea shook something in me.
“Consider that every God agrees to allow pain and devastation into the world just so their chosen people can exist. The moon waits 30 thousand years for a special young woman to be born, for she will be her loyal devoted wife. But in order for her to be born, the moon must agree with the rest of the Gods. Her mother will be impregnated in her teens, her father will be an alcoholic. All acceptable so long as she is born. The sun loves a man who is to be born in 1979. His parents were illegal immigrants, because of this he has a very unique understanding of culture. In order for this man to exist, illegal immigrants must be a thing. Borders, war, refugees must be a thing. And you, my love, born to a teen girl, a direct descendant of the Atlantic slave trade. A world without racism, without transphobia, could never have spawned someone who thinks like you. So all the Gods come together and come to a basic agreement, because every God loves someone. Can you fathom that the most selfish thing all the Gods could possibly do, is allow the world to exist?
I sat with that. It reoriented some ideas in my mind. Provides an answer to that question, if God good then why does bad happen? But it reframes the question. Not, why does bad, but rather, is love worth all the bad? Am I worth my mother’s torment? Is it all worth it just so my lover can exist?
“Do you think I’m worth it?” I asked. And he squeezed me, kissed me, pinched my cheek. Smiled.
“Without question, love. I would make that promise one million more times if it meant having you. Everything is worth it.”
Somehow the idea of that is not comforting. Everything being worth it seems like the most painful option.
I kissed him again. He kissed me back. We ended up making out.
“I think you’re a lot more like your father than you thought, Lucifer.” I murmured. And he nibbled my neck.
“I know,” he answered. “I try not to think too hard about it.”
Hm.
Oh, Lucifer.
