Perhaps I could have spared my lungs

the weight of an infinite sea-

Had my name not slipped so sweetly,

So carelessly,

From between your lips-

Ensnaring me in a voice as warm as honey.

 

It was no fault of yours.

How could you know, afterall,

That the landscape of my heart was a dried, brittle, place

Where life had never been given the chance to flourish?

That the fondness of your voice would be enough

To set the strangled underbrush ablaze with all the strength of

A vengeance-seeking god?

 

And because my heart remained the source

Of this raging inferno,

The iron in my veins ran molten-

And I surrendered to the flames singing

Just beneath my skin.

Fate made it tantalizing to be consumed by you,

rather than silently atrophy.

But you were not a wayward spark.

No, you were the entire sun and

I smoldered without end--an ambitious satellite

Caught willingly in your orbit.

 

Had you not been Helios-

Crowned with all the passion of a sunrise

And heartache of a sunset,

Perhaps I would have avoided the folly of building wax wings

With which to follow you across the horizon.

 

I did not remember, that I was no longer Icarus-

That the fire you had lit within me

Still blazed--serving as my own funeral pyre.

And so when the wax begun to melt,

When the feathers pulled away to return to the earth

In tumultuous spirals,

It was not your warmth which banished me from the skies

Once I grew too close,

But the firestorm I had allowed myself to become.