Charlie Angel

Flecks of Light
Behind My Eye

Charlie Angel is an artist, animal lover, writer, and painter who is interested in exploring the depths of human relationships.

Instagram: @vessel.creep

Project Statement: Flecks of Light Behind My Eye sheds light on Charlie’s experience of love of self and others through the lens of mental illness and trauma.

A dark image of a hand with fingers clawed atop a lampshade that slightly illuminates the underside of the fingers in orange.

Grip the light that is offered to you. It is within your grasp to be happy, to be fulfilled. I have learned recently that I am in control of my own joy. Now I see light in every experience. The things that have happened to me could be considered dark and dreadful and even fatal to some but now I turn on a lamp and smile at the small offering of illumination in my living room. There is good to be seen in this world I know it and I know because I’ve found it and it exists in this small rented house with a dirt backyard and with dogs barking and plants I forgot to water but it’s all perfect and it’s all I want because I’ve created it with you and therefore it is a force to be reckoned with. I am a force to be reckoned with, with you behind me, whispering in my ear that I am strong and powerful and capable. I have found happiness and it is not reliant on you but it is with you and now I can step foot into the sun and smile even with my yellow teeth and thin lips and frizzy hair, and know true Beauty.

A clump of brown hair is stuck on a shower wall with light blue tiles. A towel bar is partially visible on the left.

Pieces of me and you, tangled up in Blue. What’s left behind from the ritual of cleansing each other in an act of absolute trust and care. Ugly and slimy and dripping down the wall is the semblance of love. I like the way you look at me like I’m something special. I like to look at you. Under the faucet with water in my ears I can hear the echo of my own heart beating in my ears louder and louder still when your fingertips meet my slick cheek. Here with the curtain closed in a bubble of smoke I exist with you seamlessly. And when it’s over all that’s left is a clump of me and you all tangled up, stuck on the shower wall and left to dry, a relic on an altar.

***Em and Lindsay*** — It is nighttime, two people stand mid conversation behind a wire fence, gate slightly ajar and held open by a cinder block.

***Morgan*** — A person in a fisherman's vest stands in front of a yellow house with a light teal door and a big red plastic heart above and slightly to the right of their head. Wires run from the heart and the outside light to an outlet out of the picture.

Em — A person in a white dress sits in front of three mint green hanging plants that are all dead. In front of them is a large cement pot as well as many smaller terra cotta pots with alive plants. To their right is a fence with assorted instruments in cases lined up all along it.

***Emily*** — A person in a pink cami and ripped blue jeans stands in a yard with their hand against the post of an outdoor shower, constructed of wooden beams and walls of blue floral printed sheets.

***Trent*** — A person wearing a baseball hat and a blue sweatshirt plays an acoustic guitar and sings, sitting on porch steps.

Friends are something new. Something I haven’t fully understood before.

I thought I did, at 19 hand in hand with a smiling face with razor wire teeth.

What is love without power, what is power without its abuse?

This was simply the way of things and you tried and you tried to fit into the cracks of the sidewalk so you wouldn't get stepped on but I’ve always taken up too much space and I deserved to be put in my place.

Now I look at a face not always smiling but always genuine and I see these truths as fallacies and I see real things in the eyes that look upon me with grace and not as a next meal.

These soft arms of a collective have wrapped round me and wished me well and set me free in ways I never knew possible.

I ask you to view the space of flesh and bone and blood in my chest cavity which flows evenly with a heart rate never raised and eyes never closed and palms sweaty but always held gently by one or another who loves me.

There are many now, whose stone statues circle my decapitated head of snakes in the back yard and each one has been pushed into the fire simultaneously by the hands of these bodies linked like a daisy chain around my grave, raising me from the dead and braiding my hair and sending me off with a kiss on my pale cheek.

What is home but where comfort and love intersect? Where is home but within each of you?

A safe space. A gift. An experience of deep love that was granted to me by some god who might just be me, I don't know, I don't know if I believe in god anymore but I didn't think I would ever be capable of creating anything near this for myself. You reap what you sow, okay, but I don't remember planting the seeds of absolute acceptance in transparency. The secret to this moment is that it was mirrored by my plan to grant this exact gift in its entirety the next day. The rose petals I bought are still in the closet. How are we in sync to this degree? I didn't know this was sanctioned. Did we slip through the cracks? Do we share something secret and illicit? I can't help but think something is around the corner waiting to steal away my love that is just too pure to exist in this world. But it never is. And off we run, hand in hand, scattering a trail of plastic rose petals behind us like breadcrumbs, so that we may remember each step we take, in opulence.

A bed with sage green sheets, a white swirling wrought iron four post bed frame, is wrapped in white mosquito net and green curtains embellished with glittering vines. It is adorned with rose petals in the shape of a heart and a love note rests at the foot. Lit candles are atop a bookshelf on the right and a bedside table on the left. A baseball bat is in the left corner of the room. All curtains are shut.

You’ve got mail. But you haven’t been home in a while. The only thing that’s left of your existence, the only thing that proves you were here is a phone bill, water stained and wrinkled. Never paid. Nothing lasts forever, nothing is permanent. Enjoy what we’ve got because tomorrow I’m moving to New York City, I’m gonna change my name and change my body and become an object of worship on the steps of a broken concrete stoop in Brooklyn. I’m not coming back to pay my phone bill or accept the credit card I’ve been pre-approved for $250. Remember me please, as I am and not as I was.

A mailbox lies in a bed of sticks and dirt in the yard of a house that’s been torn down. It is knocked off its post and sits with its flag up and mouth open, exposing an old phone bill that is weather stained, sun bleached, and wrinkled.

Light filters through opened blinds across a home alarm terminal and a key rack with a dog chain hanging on it.

Poor Man’s Stained Glass, objects of security bask in the warm light, imitating the safety and beauty found in a chapel. I worship the blessing of comfort brought into my humble home by the close of the day, bringing forth an inaccessible attribute of total assurance normally only found through religious fervor. But I have created a space within these four walls and built a house of prayer out of an open heart and a kiss on the cheek before leaving for work. Dust moats float and land behind my eyes, glittering visions of security wrap around me like a blanket.

I love to watch you love. I love the care you put forth into the world. You resonate kindness like a singing bowl and I am always listening carefully, it is a lullaby, it is my anthem. A walk down the street is for me a trip to dip my toes into the grass at the park and feel the hot sun on my face. For you it is a chance to bring welcome tidings to each living being you encounter. I’ve yet to behold another soul who grips each heart offered to them with such careful reverence. I am just another stray you’ve welcomed into your fold. I am so grateful and honored to reside in your heart on the tier of a street cat.
A person with blonde bangs and brown hair is wearing a blue shirt, crouched on a sidewalk in a yard, stroking the tail of an orange medium-haired cat. They hold a camera to their chest.

Laugh a little longer in the sweet embrace of late nights in the past tense. Foraging through memories for this one moment of peace that I felt at your house that night. I lie still, hovering above my own body, watching it move through the motions with ease. Dextrous in the ways of dancing under the moon and having a really fun time like such a fun time with you and the ones we hold close. Near the stars, almost touching, I spill my beer down my shirt and the stain doesn’t matter and I don't matter “but in a good way” you say, easing my existential dread with a smile and a good time and a moment I will cherish forever. I owe it all to the ones who brought me here though turmoil and near death experiences but here I am cracking a beer and singing along to the song you made up while you were drunk the other night. thanks mom thanks god I scream as I disobey their wishes. But in a good way.
A dark image, a person stands in front of a tall wooden fence holding a Modelo and laughing.

***A letter came in the mail today. Hand written from my mother. It was short. 4 sentences:***

I called and it went to voicemail because she was in church and I wept into the phone.

Mama I miss you. I need my mom.

A person with purple hair checks the mail down the sidewalk and next to a green leafed tree.