Icarus, Falling

© 2001 Mikal A. Trimm
All rights reserved.

My arms are torn and flayed;
The bindings punish me with every beat.
Tallow paints my back in blisters, and
I smell the stink of a thousand gulls' wings
Thrown into a furnace.

You saved me from prison
And told me to follow you.

Feathers crisp and curl;
The sweat boils off my skin
And I am blinded by the steam.
The air thins, and my lungs
Are full of smoke and ash.

You told me we'd be saved
If we just kept sight of the goal.

My eyelashes turn to powder;
My lids are burned away.
I feel myself falling, and somehow
It seems I fall upwards, into
The heart of the inferno.

Father, please forgive me,
For I know not what I do.

I'm falling, and I feel so cold.
I miss the heat; I miss the fire's instruction.
It taught me only agony, its lesson incandescent,
But oh, the pleasure of the pain, and
Oh! The light! The light . . .

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