Fallen

By Nat Hardwick

A divine angel in the heavens,

Soaring across the porcelain clouds,

Sweet songs sung by the cherubs.

But behind the heaven’s beauty,

Were sounds of disharmony and sorrow,

For those deemed cursed were silenced,

Rainbow butterflies and infinity symbols upon their cheeks,

Were covered up by the cruel seraphim that oppressed them.

Among the angels was one,

Ignorant to the cruelty of the seraphim,

He soars across heavens periwinkle skies,

Blissfully unaware of the darkness beneath him.

One day he stumbled upon a hidden door,

Curiosity got the better of him,

He opened the mysterious ebony door

And what he saw sickened him to the core.

He saw fellow angels being held down by the ones he trusted,

The seraphim rubbing harshly on the cheek,

In a wicked attempt to remove their “impurities”.

He ran to the head of the seraphim,

In tears, he demanded to know why,

Why they were doing this to his people,

The seraphim looked down on him with a bitter expression,

Then she exclaimed disgusted,

“You dare question the work of our heavenly father?!”

To which the angel replied,

“Does he not love everyone as you have told us.”

The seraphim looked at him disappointedly.

Before he could even blink,

He was thrown into the dark abyss.

In questioning the supposed work of God,

He had been cast out of heaven,

And found himself on the crimson floors of hell,

As he let out a sorrowful yell.

His wings turned wretched charcoal black,

With his halo faded,

With ember horns adorned on his head.

Cast out of heaven,

His marks returned,

A butterfly and an infinity of Iris.

As he walked across the gloomy humid floor,

He felt betrayed,

He felt like a fool.

Years passed,

And he had embraced his identity as a fallen angel,

He fought against the seraphim rule over his people,

Though defeated he never relented.

His courage and strong will,

Reached the ears of angels who suffered from the seraphim cruelty,

So they rebelled,

And became fallen like him.

As the fallen angel’s army grew,

The seraphim grew worried of an uprising,

So they attempted to manipulate their leader,

The one who they cast out for questioning themselves as a believer of God,

But their attempts were unsuccessful,

They tried to oppress them,

Contain them,

Make their lives worse.

But in the end,

The angel they condemned for his “impurity”

started an uprising,

That led them to fall into obscurity.

Heaven was saved from the rule of the cold-hearted seraphim,

And the “impure” lived among the cherubs,

Though he was once fallen,

He picked himself up,

Even though he was pushed down many times,

He never was ashamed to call himself,

Fallen.

Background:

This poem was inspired by the song “Wide Awake” by Katy Perry, which reminded me of being in special ed living, unaware of the cruelty we faced for simply being neurodivergent. So, when I realised that the people I looked up to were treating my friends like scum, I felt betrayed and like a fool for falling for their siren song.

So, then I protested it in Year 8, after experiencing so much infantilisation after coming out as autistic in Year 7, because it wasn’t right that anyone was being treated this way for simply being born with autism.

I felt like I was cast out of heaven for trying to expose the school’s ableism towards my people and the internalized ableism they imprinted into students which caused me to be treated inferior to them for many years.

Even when I was trying to change this, I felt like I was ignored like a fallen angel by the seraphim that cast me out for (a sentence I was actually told) questioning the work of “God”.

But despite them trying to make my life difficult, I never relented and stood up to them whenever they tried to silence me for speaking the truth that I saw.

The angel in this poem embraces the title that was meant to shame him for speaking out.

This poem represents anyone who was cast out of society for speaking out against discrimination or speaking their mind.