Devout: An Anthology of Angels

by Quinton Li

She thought of the bees that nestled between the petals, their wings crystalline under the sun. They did not worship the nectar; they were themselves divine.

It was sin, what he wanted Dani to do to him, but it would be blissful all the same.

An angel, fallen. A child of man, wounded. A beast of Eden, blameless.

Perse used to despair that no one ever got them, that they weren’t perceived as who they really were. They don’t see me. They see what they want to see. Whatever fits a clear label. But they’ve decided there are benefits to oneself being the only person who will ever truly know themselves. Everyone else is missing out, not me. And isn’t it incredible that there are billions of little worlds floating around just on one planet?

Give me every drop of you, give me even your blood, I’ve been soulless for too long, and left emptied, needing to be whole again

Let all the lovers be jealous of us, they say, they will never love like we do

He had never told anyone the way the title felt like a skin stretched too tightly over a body holding more soul than it had room for.