My angels are the suffering angels; my angels are the flesh with shooting pangs. They were created to be suffering things, terrible things, the life & the agony. They come to me and we are one together--they possess me and I become made of the substance of suffering, so that I can look to the suffering god upon the crucifix, and say, "I too am a miserable thing, and I have tears to match your tears." And I feel a kinship with the suffering thing on the crucifix, that mass of tortured flesh, and now I know why such a monstrous thing is worshipped as God, why we look to the Agonies and render them honors, while the Joys we do not mention. For we too are the flesh of pangs & miseries, all of us here--and it takes immeasurable courage to live on the face of the earth as a mortal thing, a thing that perishes and rots like so much refuse. Yes--we shall all perish and rot--this is the test, this is the darkness we cannot see past--there is an End to all of this, there is a Final Agony beyond which we cannot feel a thing--and into darkness we go. Were we immortals in a land of immortals we would look down upon the face of the earth in disbelief that human beings can find any joy at all, knowing they will one day perish, knowing nothing of what lies in store for them when they do. And yet this flesh is tortured flesh, weeping flesh--and the end of All and Everything seems a sweet thought, a restful thought. Could I know I will never live on after death, I would feel some measure of relief, as if a thousand terrors had dissolved--it is rather the utter darkness of it, the chaos of every possibility for me that makes me tremble, makes me hold back the knife from my wrist.