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.

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.

there's this boy in my class who can move through water like a raindrop through summer air, though his eyes are brown like the ground on which he walks.
he is an ocean with currents and waves and groundswells, all waiting to drag me up and send me crashing into him.
i've always been a good swimmer, was even on a team once, but his water is pushing and pulling and putting its hands on my waist and neck, tangling in my hair, telling me to trust him.
but how do i trust if i've never been in love before?
how do i give myself to someone and expect to get every penny back?
do i have the time (is he worth the time) to count every coin and weigh for counterfeits?
is part of falling in love taking the risk of not getting everything returned?
can i come out of love unchanged?
or is change a part of love?
i know that you took mythology as an elective last trimester because i saw you in the library and was trying not to stare so let me tell you the story of icarus.
he fell.
hard.
he had wings fashioned from wax and feather and did not heed his father's warnings, flying too close to the sun, touching salvation with his fingertips, only to fall into the unforgiving sea.
if i am icarus and you are the sea then who is the sun?
is love personified within the sun in our myth, something that you must fall away from in order to fall into?
is love the enemy or the goal, something to obtain?
is there a reward for the fall?
is the reward love?
do i need to love (or even merely like) in order to meet you face to face somewhere out of school, coffee maybe?
or a movie?
i hear there's a new one out about a girl afraid of love.
to be loved.
to give love.
to accept love.
does seven work for you?

The sun
gold and radiant,
                                                The boy
                                shy and ambitious,

the warmth
that shone brightly,
grew weary as man took flight  


                                            the tower,
                             an illusioned prison,
    held onto the yearning soul tightly

the god
that loved mighty,
the echoing of the lover silenced

                                                  the lover
                                  a tragedy himself,
                calling out to the gold fiend,

the fiend
that mourned nightly,
the golden star shined not bright

                                              the tragedy
                                   lost beneath blue,
         mourning the fiend and himself