i.
i'm playing the boy with wax and feathers again
maybe it's the poet in me that gives me such hubris
but i no longer am satisfied
to just touch the sun,
i want to drink it too
and in all my years as the boy who touched the sea
i've always tasted salt long before this point
but the waves are still below me
and i am climbing towards the sky
your wings can't melt if they're
no longer made of wax
and what i have that
icarus never did
is a body that can be broken more than once
and still come through fighting tooth and nail
icarus' wings were made of feathers and wax
and sure he laughed as he fell but
my wings are made out of whiskey and fire
my stomach holds the key to nuclear fusion
and there are sunspots dancing down my throat
and behind my eyes
icarus fell to his death but i
will
    supernova

ii.
icarus was lonely
and that's what happens when you're
lonely for too long, isn't it?
he was just a lonely boy
who wanted a friend
and he found one in the sun
icarus was lonely,
and that's what happens when you're lonely:
you make friends with
loaded guns disguised as boys
with those who are better knives than people

iii.
it was never an act of rebellion
never him drunk on freedom's reality
icarus wanted to make his father
proud, wanted to be the first to
touch the sun and the sea in one
fell swoop, even if it killed him
but icarus was never meant to be
atlas, and his winged shoulders weren't
enough for the weight of the sky
or his father's expectations, and when
he fell to the sea, his father, mad
with grief, may have become achilles
but icarus?
he laughed as he fell
it is a wonderful thing to take
the sky off of your shoulders.
wonderful and terrible to realize you
can never be enough
icarus laughed as he fell