he told me i was an angel as we crossed paths crossing the street at 12:34am monday and the words do you know where a nearby gas station is dribbled out of his mouth and i replied yes there’s a gas station on the corner of north lake drive and bush river road and he said thank you miss you’re an angel

i know the words of a drunk man stumbling across the street at 12:34am monday should not be read into too deeply but i cannot stop turning the phrase you’re an angel over and over in my mind poking and studying it like a scientific abnormality because these words to describe me sound like gibberish like a dead language that i don’t understand

nothing about me ever was angelic my breasts have always been different sizes my skin is bumpy and my hair is as wild as my eyes but to that drunk man lost in the city at 12:34am monday i was the most beautiful being he had ever laid eyes on he saw in me everything I never could see in myself

it occurs to me that i should have asked his name or where he was going or maybe even his life story but it’s too late for that now he’s gone and sober and i will most likely never see him again and i am unable to tell him the impact his slurred syllables had on me in that chilly moment at 12:34am

he said i was an angel

if i had been in my right mind i would have corrected him i would have told him no sir you’re wrong because angels don’t cross the street smelling of marijuana and sadness at 12:34am on a school night because they are trying to get back to the house they crept out of nearly two hours earlier without their mothers knowing

angels don’t argue with their mothers over meaningless things like shoes and reality television on the sunday which was yesterday

angels don’t take antidepressants like they’re candy and tuck themselves away from the rest of the world to write sad poetry

angels don’t cry and swear and scream out against the lack of humanity in the world because they weren’t invited to a party because they are always invited to parties because they’re f***in angels

no sir i would have said

i am not an angel but if you don’t mind i’d like to think of you as God