Oh, mama if you could see me now.
Blistered hands and soiled feet.
I keep backsliding down this one-way street,
But with eyes shielded and appearance neat.
I fear the unknown so I make the unknown familiar to me.
That’s why I let the smoldering ashes graze my cheek
And fly to close to burning suns.
Icarus drew to close to the light of the world and fell back to the ocean’s reproach
But to feel a singe of the supreme—to be scorched by the pure, to be acknowledged by the fundament— for mere seconds must have been worth the fall.
The feeling felt foreign,
But there was something in the glowing beacon of brown irises that called to me.
Like the winged god to his flame,
I had no choice, the urge had already made its claim.
And for an elated glimpse in a lifetime, whose remnants will last for such, I was that man flying high,
closer to the heat, closer to the ideal that countless lovers die dreaming of and hoping for.
So breathtaking that the tragic brevity was worth it all.
And now I take up a reinvigorated desperation to force the unknown to be familiar,
Out of terror that my luck will reach its posterior,
And reality will expose me as nothing more than a pawn daring with its last move …
before the inevitable fate of its predecessors.
Tired eyes and tempting thoughts of retreat,
I keep pumping the air back into my hearth to keep my spirit alive.
Oh mama, if you could see me now….
Daddy, if you could just see me.
I am flying high, searching for that fire again– Once found in another–but this time, in hopes of finding the light inside of me.
Marlee Archer 