Icarus

Teetering on my limits
Tiptoeing to greatness
Or so I whisper fiercely
wistfully

wander off

ledge

Thorns in the hedge tear my wings
Sting my eyes with blood and tears

How many brambles will I shred before
they shred me?

I won't be seen unscathed but rather
Wreathed in crowns of lurid bloody laurel
A halo on my features
As I rise with raw will
Wings sewn to skin
Scarred
but alive.

It isn't a question of if I will soar
or even for how long
but at what cost
and what desiring

of a life that consumes me scars and stitches
blood and feathers
fire with fire of a star
begging for the relief
of matching wills to one
Going Home
Never really falling.

This is why I bleed.

Siege

This is a siege.

I hear your voice beyond the door
You sing my name and you want more
But I'm locked away by choice.

The winter wind indifference is fierce
and heavy, just like tears.

The garden is hidden, and inside, it is dead.
You have the old place
without forwarding address.

You sit at a remote outpost and
eat some beans and bread and
choke down bitter coffee with your aspirations.

I am not home.
I do not love you.
I will not come away with you.

"I'm sorry" said she
And studied once more his broken spirit
A cracked shell that would quickly crumble.

"Please don't go," said he
Voice tripping on jagged edges of his heart
That had crept up his throat obstructing breath.

But it was already gone.
And there they were, strangers
Equally met anew
Like the ground beneath a destroyed building
Makes acquaintance with the sky
After a long time of not perceiving one another properly.

He knew, at least, that is what she saw.
She was the sky and he was the dirt
And she passed him by
Even though he knew that no matter where he went
Her presence would be there like the horizon
Though she would smile on somebody else.

It was enough to wish himself rid of the world,
Or at least to perhaps drown himself beneath the waters of a new woman
To restore a bit of the obstruction between earth and sky
Even though water would still vaguely resemble sky
It was comfortable.
His heart sank.