Call me Icarus from the future

I left my wings of wax at home.Illustration by bradleyflora.com

I was Icarus from the future, with glass wings and a fragile smile. A friable heart, broken and embrittled. That’s not a request for Michelin stars, it’s an admission of guilt. An admission that I left my wings of wax at home. If you dine at my restaurant, I’ll seat you by the aquarium or the big plate glass window with views of the sea.

Clouds in the sky, pink macaroons smashed flat but still fresh. Slow down, let the jet-stream carry your eye across the cotton candy ripples of divinity where you’ll see me flying, catching cloudfish for your dinner.

I should apologize, too. Someone once taught me the meaning of the comma and I’ve overused it ever since, used it as a rope to lash together ideas, build words into sentences, and then hurtled the whole thing at the castle walls. Who knew a trebuchet could fly?

I did it backward. Left the rock on the ground where it belongs and sent the war machine off to be splintered against someone else’s hubris. Isn’t that what they want?

Let’s not be lazy or pejorative-isn’t that what who wants?

Wood and rope and iron crashing into stone and steel and, look! a sheep, flying below, grazing in the in-between space between armies, between what you want to read and just how much I plan to get paid.

I’m ready to brag. I wrote this sentence in only 15 minutes. I melted down my wings and sold them as candles at the farmer's market. I wish I was as talented as you but I’m stuck in this body and here’s the point: buried in the depths of this non-flagellating prose, non-descriptive hallmark card, sharp-tipped descriptive practice, oscillating backflips, tremendous tremulous words are six secrets.

This isn’t Dan Brown meets Hunter S. Thompson. It's not even truth; it's fiction, wrapped around my heart, healed and healthy, as I burn calories for the future generations.

Call me Icarus from the future was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.