Icarus washes up on Miami Beach over the spring break of 2k16 and finds a world where the gods roam the streets,
where his wax wings burned themselves into trenches of scars down his back,
where we warn our children of the dangers of flying too high,
but forget the part about the riptides waiting if you fly too low.

He asks Siri how far away the sun is,
finds Apollo in the red rocks of New Mexico
off I-40 just outside of Albuquerque,
alone and basking in the heat.
The ice caps are melting.

The sun still hurts to touch,
burning Icarus's hands and leaving fingerprints in the feathers of his melted wings,
but Apollo is much kinder now,
soothing the skin cancer with freckles and soft touches.
It no longer feels like a damning.

This is what happens to the children of tragedies:
they flinch too much,
they fall too hard,
they're fragile as glass but immune to everything the world can throw at them.
Icarus flinches at the sound of the oceans.
He knows the wrath of Poseidon.

Icarus rises from the dead with his irises washed white
and his rips etched with Hades's name:
he should have been a child of Persephone,
spring in his hands and flowers in his hair.
He should have spent his days sprawled in the sun's caress.
He should have been infinite.

Icarus flinches too much.
That's what everyone keeps telling him.
He flinches too much at every lifted voice and crashing wave and
he flinches too much when he feels sunshine on his face.
Icarus is sorry for flinching too much.
Icarus is trying not to flinch too much.
Icarus is sorry that it's taking so long to just get over his trauma and stop flinching so much--
sorry.

He doesn't know what to do now that he's touched the sun
and this time it didn't burn.
He wanted it to burn.
He wants to burn.
He wants to feel his bones breaking all over again because
that's the only time he doesn't feel like he needs to be in control.
Why is he chasing things that hurt?
Why does he feel
like he deserves to hurt?
He deserves to crash.

He finally touched the sun.
Icarus feels empty, and
he's still flinching.

I don't want to be
a heartbroken Daedalus.
Let me have those wings
so I could be
the one to burn
carefree
into the sun
selfish, ignorant, oblivious.
Not grieving and delirious.
Incinerate this youth,
this dream to the root;
an instant ball of flames,
so but memory remains.

* * *

Cut my wings before I'm high
Are you my Daedalus?
We're not mature enough to fly.
I'm not your Icarus.
I'd rather be the liver
of Prometheus,
not himself who did deliver
hope to those oblivious,
misusing now his fire...

* * *

I'd rather be the liver of Prometheus
than live in this illusion of deliverance
The more you know, the more you're faced with ignorance;
and ignorance defeats you with experience

I'd rather be the wings of Icarus
and know the smell of burning feathers
than have a tomb stone like the one of Sisyphus,
no longer strong to push it from the nether

you will drown, you will drown
you will drown
and i only like you for the taste
of blood in my mouth

you will drown me, you will drown me
you will drown me
and she sees it, too
the way you **** me under your skin

oh, darling, you're gonna burn
i'm already burning;
i think it's time you joined me,
searing sunlight smiles sparkling, laced

with plasma, ichor,
these white teeth take a bite
and i remember you're mortal
for the copper tang on my tongue

i only like you for the taste of blood in my mouth
i only like you for the taste of blood in my mouth
i only like you for the taste of...
there is no taste to describe the feeling of falling in love

i wish i could lie to myself better,
maybe it'd make me more convincing
when you tell me you love me
and i say i don't love you at all

We gather here tonight
To bask in Fate’s delight.
A tale to tell our path,
A tale of Fate’s dear wrath.

Who is fate up there,
With her shining silver hair?
Arranging constellational myths,
From her fingertips.

What can we believe of Fate?
Basking immortal in the sky,
To her we wonder why--
The stars are wrinkles in time.

What drives the stars to shine,
And what can we ask of them,
In lines and curves and light?
Can they guide us through our life?

Can Fate tell us all of this?
After all, she is made of myths.
She burned the flying Icarus,
And cursed dear Prometheus.

Who are we without our fate?
Do we know our own way?
What are we without dreams?
What are we without prophecies?

“Where is Fate?” we ask.
“Can we coax her out?”
Instead she whispers down,
Fate is found inside ourselves.

My dear Icarus,
Have you brought tales of gold for me?
You-- the master of self,
The one who held his own thread and shears.
Don't share of how hard you beat your wings
But how the air beat against your brow.
Don't echo your father's faded cries
But sing the songs of the Aegean sea--
Sing them only for me!

My sweet Icarus,
Is the world as grand as the travelers say?
Are crumbling maps and hand-spun tales nothing to compare?
I've read of Sicily, where your father rests his mourning head.
I've traced its rivers as they curved against my torn papyrus.
Sicily, the land of Aetna.
Oh, to watch the land shake at the beckoning of her call
(Oh, to fly free of these labyrinth walls)!

My darling Icarus,
Tell me-- is life better above the blanket of Grecian blue?
Is it better than what the Fates designed?
Is it better than what I hold today
(please, let it be more than today)?

My beloved Icarus,
Will you give me your wings--
The mingling of feather, wax, and dreams.
Will you give me your wings and
Your will to yearn higher and higher

So that I too can reach the city of gold.

The Icarus that I was
fell in love with the sun.
I flew high and fast and didn't waver for even a fraction of a second.

I thought that I had to work like that, tire myself like that to prove my love for the sun.
So I came closer to see if the sun really did love me back.


But I got burnt.

I fell.

I broke my wings so I took them off.

I can't say it changed me for the better, but it hadn't left me the same as well.

Now I roam around with my name but not with my self.
I looked up and saw that the sun hasn't changed.

   'Shouldn't you be affected by this?'
I asked
    'Why aren't you affected by this?! BY ME?!'
I yelled.

I was mad.

I was desperate.

I was in love and I was hurt.


But I was also wrong.

I shouldn't have wished for the sun to feel the way that I did. To fall the way that I did.

I lied down and took a minute to feel everything.

Without my wings, lying down felt different.
I could feel the ground with my shoulder blades and my back felt the way the grass shifted away from me.

I looked up and saw the sun going down.

Because the sun isn't always going to be there.

And in its place were the moon and the stars.

And just like that
I saw that I didn't love the sun because of who it is.
I loved the sun because the sun was also a star.

And who would be stupid enough to not love a star?

with the weight of the world on my shoulders,
hands scrabbling at my back,
i wonder when i stopped being icarus
and took on the role of atlas
and if it was foolish of me to wear wings of wax
and expect them not to melt

i miss that flying freedom.
feeling on top of the world, soaring through a blue sky
with you, my apollo, a guiding light;
an enveloping warmth,
it felt like nothing could touch me
even on the coldest nights

i knew enough of science and mythology
to know i'd fall hard,
that candles drip and melt
and when they melt, your skin burns;
i knew that looking into the sun
would surely make me blind

it didn't feel like such a hazard at the time
i've never had 20:20 eyesight.
the blindest man is the one that refuses to see
and why see when i could feel?
throw caution to the wind, take flight...
i flew and i fell and i loved so i drowned

standing by the ashes
of his burnt wings ...
he got his answers,
why icarus was told
never to fly too low
or too high ...
but love never understands ...
or does it ?? .

you are more than the second child
you are more than your mother's eyes
you are more than your self-prophesied
self-inflicted demise
you are more than your downfalls and your doubts
wind in your wings under the sun's collapse
can you feel the scorch on your back?
the burns don't scar but leave phantom marks
from where the wax has melted.
apollo always smiled too bright,
so warm that it burned out your retinas
and washed the color from your irises.
the ocean will sooth the memories,
aloe vera for old haunts and past loves,
broken families and falling, falling,
falling