when reading of icarus i
cannot help but fear the crushing weight of king minos combined with the over-zealous
wit of daedalus.

for icarus was perhaps too prideful;
met with a moment of weakness;
adrenaline coursing through his veins;
and a sheer loss of control
blinded by the highest point of the sun
in a blooming sky.

perhaps even he failed
to head his father’s warning
as the burning wax of his wings
melted upon his shoulders.

yet king minos sentenced daedalus
and too his son,
who later fell to the fate of his father’s own design.
not once
but twice.
not once,
but twice -
but twice,
but twice a child
returned with confidence
to his father.

and the ringing in my head still continues to be  that the child is not to blame for
the sins of the father.
the child does not carry
the sins of the father.

so it goes that in the end
daedalus was granted athena’s wings ever-soaring.
perhaps in grief;
perhaps in empathy;
perhaps by the grace of a woman’s forgiving touch.

but icarus still drowned in the spring.
and the ploughing of the fields
remained uninterrupted as his scorched  
waxen body fell into
the jowls of the sea.

I want to change, as in,
I want to be better, as in,
I think something's wrong, as in,
I wish I could go back to before things mattered

Lick my lips
Cradle my face
Gaze into my eyes
And tell me I'm safe

lately,
my heart
has been louder
even in echo than my head and
i am here
trying to navigate the oceans between
too much and not
enough.

looking ever-closer to where i think
the peaks of mountains
can be measured between fingertips;
measured between dividers;
backed by a steady needle’s weight.

a sea claimed Bering
through a marshy coastline
lit only by oil and torch -
where buoyancy can balance
treacherous watery routes and  
rough, shaky hands can trace the  
pulling of sails through knots
towards the exhaling light of an imminent shore.

though i am unsure of the differences between finger-lengths,
am i holding back
because i cannot accurately predict
the pulls of the moon;
the swells of tides;
the seasons of rough storms?

perhaps even the spark of embers against my heaving backbone -
and what of the humming gears of sentience
in my chest?

am i holding back because
what i lay in permanence always meets
a spray of waves?
the crash of undercurrents against the breath leaving
your lips? -

currents that unapologetically meet
the rise of the earth and the
curve of your back
forcing the Weems
to stretch for topography that maybe even my knees cannot lock against.

go down with the ship,
i will swallow the grasp reflex that builds
in my throat and in my palms.

a million times over i will meet the breaking of every tensile structure in my body
if it means catching your swell.

and like the greek merchant’s ship cast deep into the dead sea’s belly,
i will be overcome with every ounce of your pressure
even if every time
i am fated to lose the rise and fall of my lungs to salt water;
to a watery grave;
to knit sheets and a sailor’s prayer;
a promise of ever-lasting life.