The truth and angels

Angel with dark wings

She used to come when I got scared, talk to me a bit
Lay real close and touch my hair, bring me warm milk and tears
Tell me there’s nothing to fear, kiss me, call me Johnny dear
Made me believe

I told her I would be alright, if I could see the end
I was afraid to close my eyes, asked her if it was a dream
Asked if she would come with me, she said, “baby, we’ll see”
When we got better

But in the end, who was helping who?
Who was really blue?
Who needed just to break on through?
Get out of here and fly away?
My angel with dark wings

I tried to find her a gift, I was thinking about her smile
Couldn’t find nothing that fit, something was out of place
Something she could never name but everyone could feel the shame
Settle in the room

And in the end, who was helping who?
Who was really blue?
Who needed just to break through?

Oh, in the end, I couldn’t say good-bye
To her reasons and her rhymes, all the things behind her eyes
My angel with dark wings

There’s a secret that I know, something that we shared
And I’ll never tell a soul, won’t open up my heart
Show the world the blackest parts, where she reached deep and far
And showed me how to live

Oh, in the end, who was helping who?
Who was really blue?
Who needed just to break through?
Get on out of here and fly away?
My angel with dark wings

__________

Credits and story:  About a year ago, I watched a video of a band called Seether.  The song was called “Broken,” and the video featured Amy Lee, of Evanescence, as an angel with charcoal colored wings.  I was hit by the image and picked up my guitar.  I turned the sound off and started to play some chords and just put words in the air.  Soon enough, a few lines became a verse, and then an image popped into my mind:  the story James Frye told in the book, My Friend Leonard, about Lilly, the woman he fell in love with while in rehab.  The story affected me deeply, and watching Amy Lee in those charcoal wings brought it back to me vividly.  From that moment on, the song wrote itself.

All the pictures in the video are photos I have captured over the last several years in my neighborhood and world.  I put them together to tell a sort of story.