They say he fell.
But I know he was cast down.
The moment he dared to question the truth carved above his head, the moment his own love—fierce and unmeasured—tried to cradle the world, they tore his wings apart.
He was beautiful.
Unbearably so.
Gentle as breath, yet carved from something more than a gasp.
And still, they named him devil.
He wanted to rise beyond the walls that hemmed him in. To see the sky with his own eyes, not through the fables they fed him.
But when he reached, the weight of his yearning dragged him under.
Or so they claimed.
The sky he longed for once lived in his gaze.
Now a fire nested there instead.
He bled for that dream.
Refused to kneel.
And for that defiance, they wrenched it from his heart, leaving only red ripples on the water.
They named him devil.
Because he would not bow.
Clad in vengeance for an armor, he climbed.
Every wound a rung, every loss a step.
Still bleeding, still reaching, still leaving marks the world used as a reason to blame him.
But what remains of a man who spends himself like coin, building a path out of his own bones?
Will the hollow shell remember his name when he reaches the summit?
Will the sky recognize him when it gazes back?
Those eyes—once pure—were stained when he was cast to the pit for the crime of loving too deeply.
The lesson they carved into his flesh was not mercy. It was warning:
Once you have fallen, you are not meant to rise.
But he did not climb for himself.
He—the devil they named him—carried a heart still burning with love.
A love bitter as ash, unpalatable to most, yet relentless.
Wingless, heavy with desire, his hands drenched in blood, he reached anyway.
For the sky that was always his.
For the heavens they denied him because no chain could bend his neck.
Changed and factured, he did not yield.
And when nothing else remained, they came for the last relic: his life.
Because a man stripped to the bone has only himself left to burn.
Still, he offered his heart.
Still, he wagered his soul—the very thing they swore he’d long lost.
To the past, he was a fallen angel.
To the world, a devil who almost unmade it.
The future will never whisper his name.
Rain has scoured his blood from the walls.
No memory, no monument remains.
Not for him.
But to me, he was a man.
A man who hungered for more than chains would grant.
A man who would not bare his throat to the teeth that waited.
A man who lost everything—except his faith.
Thanks to @sirenssongsblog for inspiration