The Clouds for The Divine

By, Wendiann Alfieri Clouds

I feel the wind

Beneath my feet

The ground I loved

Is falling slowly

I’m riding up

I begin to feel holy

Going to heaven

Leaving my body behind

Going blind by all the light

Hearing pained

Feeling their unnecessary guilt

From down below

I hear them beg and say

“ Please don’t go”

I want to tell them I’m okay

That they can look at the clouds

To see me one day

I reach a big gate

An angel stands there with keys

Warning me that sometimes in heaven it’s hard to breathe

That when your cloud dissolves and falls upon earth

That they have a nurse

That the gates have security to protect us

From harm

I believe this angel means harm from demons even though he means earth

All the sadness that upwards disperse

I look at him and nod in agreement

He unlocks the gate and gives me a look over

Almost tearful and out of hope

What does this mean for my soul?

I hear the gates click behind me

Able to float I am

I twirl around in the air

I look around

Something is wrong with every soul on the clouds

There is weird mist surrounding each one

Family’s of angels and souls

Hiding from someone

I see a guard with a machine

As a baby’s soul can’t.. breathe?

Wait...

This must be a mistake

We don’t breathe

We are souls

We are not alive

I look around

The clouds look like they’ve grown mold

A angel flies over to tell me I had a good life

Becoming and angel is my prize

We head to the nurses station

I am so confused

Isn’t this what I’ve left behind

Pain and suffering is supposed to end

This twist knocks me straight over not even letting me bend

I feel someone who taps my back

It’s a nurse angel with measuring tape

She says “ Come to my office, right now it’s not safe”

I float past another wall of mist

What I see makes me wonder

Why I’m reliving what I’ve lived

Soon I have these wings, I find out

These wings were not just for us to mount

This woman nurse soul explains it all

The wings now have filters

To catch the dirt smoke and debri

We will almost always get caught in our wings

The purgatory souls we now share clouds with

God finds that we all are equal in times of crisis

My wings are placed on my back

They give me a little “ clean your wings filters” pack

I use my wings and am assigned to go to a cloud

With a soul from purgatory that takes care of people with these new wings

This soul rushes towards me, happy to help

I burst out,

“ How can you be happy now heaven is hell?”

She chuckles but doesn’t smile

Looking down she replies,

“ I’m not happy and I’ll tell you why

This may be heaven

But it’s still part of earth

One we pay for

When the ones we leave behind

Think, ‘This world will be mine’

The crisp air and green grass

Is filled with sewage and gas

We are in heaven but earth was our home

We live here, but in the upwards dome

They can’t see their weakness as causing permanent damage

Alive or dead, we still have to manage”

She turns me around and sighs

“ How are you here?” I ask with narrowed eyes

Not wanting to believe

Hoping it’s all lies

“A simple blessing helped me past the test

At first it became what I was at best

Angels helping us as we helped them

But I called it bullshit now, and I called it bullshit then

The entrance to here is messed up

Literally I’m only here because of an extra taco I gave to a customer

What is considered a blessing can be minute

It makes a difference when you are waiting to be a heaven recruit”

I look at her confused

“ it’s a long story, I long for the days here in purgatory when it was just boring, a relaxing thing but also mundane

I learned to love it

These things happen through luck or a system

Who knows really

We never get answers to questions”

She sighs

“ how does this pollution... how do we survive?”

She looks at me and nods her head

“ There’s something I learned something that is not often said, it’s got a confusing meaning but is a good way to define this world that is less than divine,”

She closes her eyes and opens them and I wonder, she’s telling me this but why?

She speaks, her mouth turned down before the meaning goes away and flies,

“ Not all clouds belong in the sky”