There once was a lass
who gazed upon the sky,
like a sailor’s widow
with eyes pining the sea.
A different ocean,
with clouds and birds—
not crests and reflections,
another kind of mirror.
A looking glass, yes:
one reveals past and present,
the other is a blank portal,
not yet formed; possibility.
Burdened by years of earth,
the girl reached up high.
To fly free in the skies,
a plan she did birth:
Simple avian appropriation—
"What could go wrong?"
Manufactured imitation—
"In the skies I belong!"
Remnants of spent candles,
some old pillow filling,
so easily on handle
to construct her wings.
And like that, she flew!
Never close to the sun,
no solar balance due—
destination once begun.
Wise to not create cracks,
a creature in the sky;
falsified wings on her back—
her presence flies on lies.
Nary a muster, ******, or flock
would take this creature in.
Unwelcome, artificial stock:
a lost and confused being.
"I have no nest, no call, no cry,
no wind-song born from feathered kin—
yet higher still I ride the lie,
if not a bird, then what has been?"
Her wings were stitched from want and thread,
a blueprint torn from childhood dreams.
She passed the clouds, yet still she bled—
unseen by all, or so it seems.
"You gave me wax, you gave me fire,
a name I wore, a borrowed skin.
I climbed the hush of false desire—
but never learned the wind within."
{fin}
She Never Fell is a contemporary reinvention of the Icarus myth told through a lyrical, ballad-like structure. It follows a nameless girl who constructs makeshift wings from household materials—spent candles, pillow filling, and broom handles—in an impulsive bid to escape the burdens of earth and ascend into the sky. Unlike the traditional Icarus figure, she does not plummet from the sun, but instead succeeds in her flight, only to find herself isolated, unrecognized, and existentially lost in the very space she longed to inhabit.
The poem unfolds in a linear narrative, beginning with her yearning gaze toward the sky and culminating in a confessional coda from the girl herself. Through a series of stanzas that blend fairy-tale tone with postmodern detachment, the speaker reveals that her wings—and her identity—are borrowed, artificial, and born of haste rather than transformation. Despite achieving flight, she remains alien to the realm she reaches, neither welcomed by birds nor grounded by truth.
The piece was written as a metaphorical exploration of personal appropriation and the illusion of autonomy, inspired by a former partner. The poem critiques the idea of transformation built from borrowed identity—where the tools of liberation (symbolized by fire, wax, and flight) are taken from another without full understanding.
The intent was to invert the Icarus myth: instead of falling from ambition, the protagonist rises—only to discover that success without self-realization yields a different kind of fall. The line “so easily on handle” becomes emblematic of this—the effortless, almost naïve ease with which we reach for escape, without understanding what we're leaving or where we're going.
The poem serves as both a personal reckoning and a broader commentary on the complexities of identity, desire, and the silent costs of artificial ascension.