They ask me the same thing every time. It's getting rather boring, rather predictable. It never changes.
"Why are you crying, Angel?" That's what they always call me. Angel. It doesn't matter where they're from, how they're raised. Thay all just assume that my name is Angel.
But it's not. Angel is what I am, not who I am. People see the robe, and the wings, and it's automatically, 'Oh, she's an angel, so that must be her name.' It's all very tiring.
No, I much prefer the times when I hide among them. When I can wear a pair of sneakers, jeans, and a bulky hoodie, and they all think I'm just another slightly chubby teenage girl. Better than being just another Angel.
But whether they realize it or not, the same people who ruin my existence as an angel, always make their way into my mortal life.
'She's fat,' They say, 'that's why she always wears hoodies.'
'She's insane,' They say, 'that's why she cries so easily.'
So many things, just like that.
And hearing them, I can't question why I'm the only one that's dared to walk among them in a millenia.
The things they do to their own kind. The things they do to themselves! The absurd need they have for the mainstream, for what they consider beautiful. Disgusting. Even I, an angel, supposedly pure, have become tainted by it. And, it seems, the only person who hasn't just happens to be the very demon who's walked by my side all this time. Just to annoy me, of course.
I can't go back up, you know. Not after becoming so...ruined, they would say.
But I can't take it down here any longer. If they want their conventional beauty, that's what they'll get. I'll cut off my wings, just to wear the tight shirts they wish to see me in. I'll lather chemicals over my face, turning my eyelids and lips impossible colors, because they insist that natural beauty be destroyed. I'll wear those dreaded skirts that cover less than you would if you didn't wear one at all, because women can no longer have any virtue, any self-respect. I'll be rude, witchy, manipulative, because no one who's pure of heart gets any respect.
And I'll find that even then, they'll find a detail that keeps them from accepting me.
So I'll go off and cry. And like clockwork, he'll come up, horns hidden beneath his ball cap, tail in one leg of his jeans, and like clockwork, he'll ask me, a bit of mockery in his voice.
He'll ask, 'Why are you crying, Angel?'

And this time, instead of turning away, instead of answering, I just might let him hold me as I cry.