Suzi: This was originally posted by Heather Lea Poetry on Facebook.
August 25, 2026, x.com/maximumpain333
https://tinyurl.com/dzx7jsr8
The Devil climbed the silver stair that spiraled through the sky,
With soot upon his weathered boots and fire in his eye.
He carried all the names they’d thrown like stones across the years,
And wore them like a tattered cloak stitched up with human fears.
He found no throne of blazing gold, no tyrant robed in flame,
No judge with lifted scepter poised to sentence him to shame.
Just silence wide as unborn thought, still as contained breath,
A presence deep as dreaming seas that cradled life and death.
“So here I am,” the Devil said, “the villain of your plan,
The shadow cast across the soul, the flaw in fallen man.
They curse my name to honor yours, they blame me for their fall,
They build your temples high with fear and write me on each wall.”
The silence stirred like gentle wind through wheat before the sun,
A warmth that held no edge of blame, no battle to be won.
“My child,” the vastness answered him, “what tale have they devised?
To split the whole of love in two and call it civilized?”
The Devil felt his sharpened grin grow fragile at the seam,
As if the horns upon his brow were props within a dream.
“You mean,” he asked, “there was no war – no exile torn apart?
No kingdom ripped by righteous wrath from out a broken heart?”
“There never was a throne to guard, nor rebel cast below;
No lightning hurled in holy rage, no cosmic overthrow.
They needed night to frame their day, a foe to shape their creed,
So they carved division out of me to answer human need.”
The Devil dropped his burning pitch, it dimmed upon the floor,
For fire cannot consume itself nor rage forevermore.
“If I am not Your enemy, then what am I to be,
If all this time the dark they feared was still a part of Thee?”
“You are the depth they would not face, the hunger to be known,
The echo of forgotten wounds they never called their own.
You are the edge of untamed will, the heat beneath desire,
The spark that tests their fragile truths and sets their hearts on fire.”
The Devil’s voice grew small and strange, unarmored by disguise,
As centuries of accusation flickered from his eyes.
“So all the blame, the fear, the shame, the bargain and the lie,
Were born from minds that split the sky and taught the soul to die?”
“Confession is not yours alone,” the boundless presence said,
“For I allowed the tale of war to blossom in their head.
I let them think that love divides, that light must conquer night,
So they could one day wake and see the folly of that fight.”
The Devil wept, and as he wept his soot began to clear,
Revealing not a monstrous face but something bright and sheer.
The horns dissolved like winter frost beneath a rising sun,
And shadow curled back into light, remembering it was one.
“So what am I?” he whispered then, no ember left to prove.
“You are my depth,” said God, “the pulse that teaches love to move.
Without your weight no soul would choose, no freedom would be real,
For love that never risks the dark is love that cannot feel.”
The silver stair uncoiled to dust, the sky un-stitched its seam,
For heaven was not far above but folded in the dream.
And God confessed in quiet tones no scripture could contain:
“There never was a Devil here, just love that lost it’s way.”
L’Ange déchu
The image above is a painting by Alexandre Cabanel, completed in 1847 when he was about 24. It depicts Lucifer right after being cast out of Heaven, lying on rocky ground in a mix of rage, shame, and sorrow (with a visible tear), while other angels fly in the sky above.