Icarus & The Sun

Poetry by Ray Dominguez

---

I was a candle;

You: a bright, burning ball of light,

More brilliant than any of the small flames that had dared to kiss my wick.

Their flickering embers tried to scorch me into nothing.

As my own wax

dripped 

down 

my melted body,

I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry. I waited.

I waited because I knew: every fire is either extinguished or burns out.

I sculpted my melted wax into Phoenix wings and flew high into the atmosphere. 

Higher and higher, until all the world’s lit matches were stars; 

Dim lights fading into dust behind me. 

Chasing after your heat, your effervescent glow, I wondered: 

How can sunlight be invisible and still permeate through your skin and bones?

Now inches from your face, I reached out to kiss you.

Gravity

pulled

 me 

down. 

My wings had dissolved and I realized:

I’d forgotten my true nature in the presence of your own. 

My body plummeted into the ocean and tried to swallow me whole.

But even as the water filled my lungs, my eyes never left you.

Out of the waves, I formed wings once more.

Let the flames succumb to their fate, while I rise to the universe’s core.

---

Ray Dominguez is a soon-to-be BFA graduate at George Mason University. They identify as a queer and Filipino-American poet, playwright and artist with a special interest in mystifying the mundane through careful crafting and impulsive imagination. Their work appears in here-after: becoming.