Icharus
Phread, 2003

I know this road well.
I've walked at least 100,000 words
in the last fifteen months,
and swore I could walk no more,

But I’ve learned that
all my roads were spirals,
and it seems they led down,
not up, as I’d hoped…

So I attempted to return
without retracing my steps…
I wondered if I could bear it,
I knew I could not bear it,
But I will, I said… and I did…

I tried valiantly
to rebuild my swamped life
knowing that I might wash away
if one more river flowed through me...

I got lost in my darkness
I forgot, and I stumbled…
and rammed full tilt
against walls in the dark…

Yet, always, in any
glimmer of hope
I looked for answers to live
where there were only questions...

I tried to find coherent directions
to find a direction I could trust
in a place I could not see…
and followed my heart…

If I could not follow my own music
I wanted to make new music…
When I could not find words,
I tried to make new words…

I wanted to dance again
in a new direction...
So, I choose, this time,
the harder road, the road less traveled…

And I choose it knowing the cost…
I choose it knowing there will be a day,
maybe there will be many days,
when I will crash and lose my wings…

When I lie in bed sobbing
until I have to vomit,
Sobbing from the pain
Of losses too hard to bare…

I will grieve from the pain
of my new wings melting,
and my new dreams dying
from flying too close to the sun...

But I will build stronger wings,
as I sob and puke and ache…
because I know I will one day
rise again to fly closer still…
===