You are without excuse
-and so am I.
The pinpricks above my fertile veins
are finally starting to heal.
You wanted something of value
and I offered myself willingly.

You lent me your Icarus-wings
and I flew too high
-too far.
I believed that I could soar,
but your wings melted,
seared into my skin
and wax-dripping,
I fell through your fingers.

Your fingers,
so willing to touch, take
-they were never stretched,
never waiting, never there
And my arms, my chest
my throat, bared and battle scared.

I traced their lines
in the mirror this morning,
and felt the frightful push
of a final scream,
still trapped in my lungs.
My heart doesn’t beat
-it hammers in my chest,
surrounded by arteries
cold and void.
I never did stop falling.

And I fear the ocean,
fast approaching, vast and dark.
Will it shatter me like glass,
or swallow me with that final
scream clenched between my teeth?

I choke on it,
bite it back
-if I choose this one thing,
all else is lost.
If I break my silence
your face will be blurred
from my memory
-rendered red and screaming
as the day you emerged
into this world.

Sun-kissed red
you watched this myth unfold.
You beheld the work of your hands,
the final Icarus-fall,
the plunge toward a hungry ocean.

A cry of rage-fear-freedom
met your ear and birthed tears.
You mourned my death
at my rebirth.
And I found myself in the waves
freed at last,
my self-imposed slavery to gravity
at its end.

Envy blinded and deafened
by rage, you cannot know
the life I have found
when your grasp slipped
on the tether of my soul.