My dope-fiend angel catches up with me in my goth pastel loft overlooking Paradise Lost. She captures my dreams in a snow globe, then asks for a drag. She hears the echoes of wars with the damned, nods off alone. God makes her sad. He captured her long before the first birth and the perfect Son walked the earth. Celestial trials, with good and evil both making a claim, while pale horses carry home the lost and crazed. “We can't truly misbehave in this life if God remains a paradox,” she says, melting the tar inside a spoon. I ask her if God can create a rock so heavy that He Himself cannot lift. With a shrug, she says, “I wish.” “Lance… come with me beyond the veil, will you please?” I stare blankly at a stone tablet. “I’m sorry, Ambriel. I gotta carve the epitaphs— so the living can either cry or laugh. Just take Judas to a strip club. He stabs people in the back, so let him get the clap.” “Oh, Lance!” Ambriel lets out a genuine laugh. “You delightful, corrupt mortal… you know they hate you upstairs. Soon I won’t be able to visit without the twelve groupies out to picket.” I sigh. “Oh well… I guess I’ll toss away the opera tickets. Opiates won’t help hide burns on that halo or hide scars on those wings.” Ambriel replies, “I know. But they help me sing to you in your dreams.” “Fair enough. My dreams can be rough.” “Lance… please… just shut the fuck up.” We lie, we die, we float to the sky.