All these feelings, heavy as lead,
Come back like bullets to the head.

“Don’t fly too near to the sun,” he had warned me,
as he strapped the wings across my eager back.
“I won’t. It will be fine,” I said, planting two feet on the ledge.
Looking down, I saw the swirling darkness of the world.
I swallowed down my fear.
But inside me, a sunbeam yearned to break free, to fly away.
To fly to an oasis in the clouds.

“Wax and feathers,” he told me, “that’s all it is.”
That’s all it is.
That’s all it ever was, all it ever shall be.
Wax and feathers.

The sky had called me by name,
and as I flew above the withering old artificer
who outstretched his ancient hand in a gesture of goodbye,
I knew I would never again see the face of men.
Only the faces of angels.
Of gods and goddesses.

The wings had lent my body a buoyancy
that I never knew had existed in the world.
Wax and feathers.
I danced and pranced and swirled and twirled into the sky,
all feelings of weight and import gone.
I had left the world behind.
I traded it all for a bit of wax and some feathers.

The feeling of bliss began to melt as soon as the wings did.
Panic struck me in the skies,
and as I looked below me I saw everything there ever was.
Everything that ever shall be.
I struggled to keep the flame alive within me.
But I fell.
Like Lucifer to the bowels of Hell,
I fell.

I ripped through clouds,
madly spinning in the air.
I glanced towards the sun above me,
growing smaller with every passing moment.
I prayed.
For the first time in my life, I prayed.

I could feel the Earth rising up to meet me.
“This is it,” I thought.
“This is wax and feathers.”
I closed my eyes.
Imagined what the old man would have said.
And I made peace.

But to my surprise, when I opened my eyes,
I was being held to the breast of an angel.
A winged figure of ineffable beauty.
I was flying with her, this perfect creation,
this embodiment of purity and divinity.
In her soft eyes I saw the moon and stars,
all eternity and space stretched out before me
in long pools of silver and white.
Her glowing golden hair was not of the world I knew,
but rather crafted out of the sun itself.
It lent light to everything.
A wave of euphoria passed over me when she
turned her gaze upon me, the human boy
in her merciful grasp, and smiled.

I belong to her.

Never again will I play with wax and feathers.

If I had honest eyes I might have seen you.

I might have noticed how the light
Simply bounces off your messy hair.
I might have noticed the dimples
In your rosy, rounded cheeks.
I might have noticed how angels
Dance at the corner of your lips
When you grace me with a smile.
I might have noticed the calmness
Emanating from your crystalline eyes.
I might have noticed the cheery glow
Around your entire corporal form.
I might have noticed how you
Glide gracefully along the floor.
I might have noticed the perfection
That is so utterly and completely you.

But my eyes are deceitful.
They wander and want.
Too late have they repented.
Like the poor, jealous Moor,
I can only say:
O! O! O!

Too late have I seen what I have done.

Through your blue eyes I see it all.*

I.

Wasted romantic fantasies.
My heart upon a dish, a knife driven through it.
I met someone with oceans for eyes once before,
But her fair, golden hair turned to vipers, venom dripping from sharpened fangs.
I watched those snakes devour my soul.
While they digested that little broken piece of my existence,
I could feel the blood flowing out of every orifice of my body.
I grew cold.
But that Gorgon only giggled cruelly.
The vipers hissed in time with her poisonous laughter.
Already, my veins were turning black.
I watched her glide away with heart in claw,
As I fell to the cold, hard, unforgiving floor.
To me, the floor whispered,
“There’s no one to catch your fall this time.”

II.

I am a clock without a craftsman.
Hands forever immobile.
Forced to feel time but never realize it flowing by.
Too late.
Always have been, always will be.
I am the Could-Have-Been King.
Being with you, Athena, is almost as bad as being without you.
With you, I see the kingdom I could have had.
I see the godhood I could have attained;
All it would take is one kiss from your divine lips.
Yet I know they do not belong to me.
And so my hands are idle,
As is the rest of my body. My heart. My soul.
You claim that my hands are made of gold,
That I leave gilded fingerprints.
If only you knew how bloodstained they are,
Soiled by a thousand envious dreams.
You would not want these hands upon your face.
They sear my own eye-*****.

III.

All the Meanwhiles, the Never-Weres, the Only-Ifs,
Have taken up residence in my dreams.
They labor to build a perfect city,
Where you and I reign supreme.
Let us sojourn to our ephemeral city, on the moon,
Where we can watch the Earth spin, grow old, and change,
All through the tubes on our television sets.
We shall name the terrestrial river outside our palatial boundaries;
It shall be called Time.
It will be harsh year round on the moon.
The water may never reach our lips,
But at least we would satisfy each other’s thirst.

IV.

Athena, send your owl unto me.
Make me wise.
Make me worthy.
Bid me come, and I shall never falter.
Never again.
Throw that Medusa’s head into the flame of our passion,
And watch with sinister glee as the snakes writhe in agony.
Raise the blessed chalice to my lips,
Let me drink of your glory.
Only send me word,
And you would have me forever.

What shall it be this time, m'lady?
Another turn upon the rack?
Tie me to four horses?
Lay stones upon my chest?
I can see your king wickedly
smiling as I gasp for air.
With each bark of laughter
he lunges for you and begins
to plant drunken kisses all
over your sweet, perfumed body.
And I am forced to watch.
Is that not torture in itself?
Ask yourself if the punishment
actually fits the crime.
I made the wrong decision, my queen.
I forsook your beauty for a
***** barmaid's.
By your tears, I know you feel
my great wound just as much.
So as the headsman places
the great singing axe upon the
base of my neck, where I often
dreamed of you kissing me
so tenderly, I want you to
know that I will always--

I.

Physics has told me that we are in flux.
But where is the phi, without I?

Calculus has told me that we are asymptotic.
But where is the limit, if I can't be in it?

English has told me that we are star-crossed.
But where is the light, if I am not right?

Chemistry has told me that we are entropic forces.
But where is concord, if I am ignored?

II.

You think you're such a *****,
But can't you see that I want your disease?

You think you are worth nothing,
But can't you see that you're invaluable to me?

You think you are alone,
But can't you see that you and I have to be?

III.**

On and off, like a light switch.
But still you have me wrapped,
right around your slender finger.
I slipped into euphoria, once upon
that lovely night, when we had
finally tasted what we were missing.
The ruddiness of your lips and
the tangled golden mess that you
call your hair sizzle quietly in
my mind. I have not forgotten.
Nor do I want to. I cannot be sated
by another. But you find it so easy
to eat the hearts of the already ******.
You spared mine, though. I wonder
why. Each hiccup in my chest alerts
me to the monster that rages within.
It wants you. It still wants you.
Eat it, if you must. I offer it freely.
Upon a silver platter.