Nobody's Angel

My stepdad called me Angel, when he was still alive. Would he still, I wonder? After three sexual assaults, after five years in the Army, after being a Carnie, after disowning my mother, after living the life I have, could this man still find it in his soul to see me as a creature of pure good? Or would he, too, see me as another product of a hard life lived, as so many seem to? Will I ever be an angel again, or am I doomed to be the "other" which I have fought so hard... This dark, dirty, angry, defensive part of myself? Is there any angel left? Is there anything still pure about me, anything unadulterated by the crimes I have witnessed or committed?
I tend not to think so.