icarus & her lover
by Eva Chen
we collected quarters in our inner pockets, the silver staining our jeans. it is mid-summer & we are still young, blood sweet as nectarines & skin-tanned from sleeping in the sun.
you place a feather into the folds of my palms and smile, your face rising with the wind. you tell me about the story of icarus and the sun, about how something too small flew too close to something too bright, only to end up shriveled & dead, bones melted into rust.
for now, your breathing and the cicadas become the only thing i hear. for now, you become a memory tarnished in the backrooms of my mind. for now, i do not know how to escape you with only these wax feathered wings & my gold-painted body.
the indigo night sky, the humming of the birds, and the stroke of your smile are all things that haunt me in my sleep. next to you, i wonder when it’ll be before you scorch the pages of my poetry and i
feel hot wax dribble down my skin.
turning over, you hand me the most gentle laugh, and your voice floats like a prayer in the air. i feel the harness giving up on me now, the weight of my wings disintegrating into ash as i watch myself fall, becoming mortal again. i am only so small when compared to the overwhelmingness of you.