Imp / Seraph

She was a groveling, heavy on the eye makeup imp from the outer circle of Hell - he was an angel in the true sense of the word: a warrior, a messenger from God (to her at least). She was narrowly escaping Hell and he had already been there and back.

Addicts can spot one another. We know the place the other either is in now or has been in. It's rocketing, rickety Hell and it forever gives a smolder to the eyes of those who have traveled there. We recognize one another on the spot, which makes those currently practicing the religion of self-inflicted injury particularly uncomfortable. They try to shade their red rimmed, fire-lit eyes away. We see you, though. And we won't say anything. We might nudge up a bit closer, both to try and deflect the demons from you and to feed the sick need that still pulses under our skins.

I was sober a while, and then he showed up with a giant heart and the best sex I'd ever had (and the only sober sex I'd ever really had) and lifted me out of the trenches of a tremendously crackling dry drunk. I slipped in the first two weeks after we had seen each other almost hourly when not at our respective work places. I ran to a friend's house, and while praising his name - the ten years older seraph - I drank enough alcohol to kill a juvenile bald eagle and immediately felt guilty. I then drove home, streetlights swimming before me. I vowed (once again) to never, ever drink again.

Four or so months later, after we had already moved in together so we didn't have to say goodbye every morning, I made a trip to my dropout alma mater. There, I sung his praises, even going so far as to prop a picture of him up on my friend's console TV. While gave myself black lung with weed over a 72 hour period, I tried to ease my guilt by telling everyone at the 25 parties that occured during that 72 hour time period that I didn't drink! No more drinky for me! I'm sober with an awesome sober man, ten years older and ten times more mature than you bunch of losers! I said this while lining up twenty joints to pop into an empty cigarette pack. Kudos to me. I was still very young, only twenty at this point. Still a demon imp with too much black eyeliner.

And that demon imp still lives in a small part of my chest cavity three centimeters to the left of my right ventricle. She stirs and she won't shut up until I've thoroughly smothered her with a pillow (that no longer smells of tobacco - the aroma of the newly sober person). She resurrects herself every couple of years. I know her presence is near when I see her eyes behind mine in the mirror when I apply maybe still too much black eyeliner. The dangerous and moody archangel is still with me, too. There's still a pull and a pulse of heat between us that can be called nothing else but desire.