To the Sun I Couldn’t Survive

[thick carbon]

I have written your name
on the inside of my ribs,
so that even as I breathe
I bleed.

I was** never meant **to survive you.

Call me Icarus, if it makes you feel safer
if it comforts your conscience
to believe I flew too close,
when the truth is
I was born reaching for you.

You were never the sky.
You were never the clouds.
You were not the stars.
You were the sun.
The Sun.
Burning, brilliant, untouchable.
You existed to set fire to everything you touched
and I...
I wanted nothing more
than to be consumed.

Do you understand that?

I wanted to fall.

I saw the wax melt before I ever took flight.
I heard the feathers whisper goodbye
as I stitched them to my back
with trembling hands
and the last thread of hope I had left.

Still
I leapt.

Oh God, I leapt.

You were dazzling.
You were divine.
I watched your smile scatter gold across my world.
Even your indifference was sacred
a sort of holy silence
that made me want to kneel.

You looked at me once
really looked,
and I swore the oceans held their breath.

In that moment,
I thought perhaps
I was not a myth.
Perhaps I was yours.

But no...
you were just being kind.
Weren’t you?

And I was just a fool
with fire in his veins
and your name in his mouth.

You never asked me to fly.
You never promised the sky.
You never reached down.
But I flew anyway.

Because how does one not
love the sun?

How does one not
burn in reverence
to something so radiant,
so far above
his broken little world?

So I chased you.

I flew through nights
of aching wind
and mornings soaked in memory.
I stitched poetry into my wings.
I carved prayers into my bones.
I offered myself up
not for love,
but for the** possibility of being near you.**

And you?

You kept rising.
Of course you did.

The sun does not fall for men.
It does not grieve.
It does not ache.

It shines.
It simply shines.
And we,
the desperate,
the dreamers,
the madmen
we burn.

But then
I felt it.

The shift.
The air grew colder.
My wings began to tremble.
Wax once faithful turned traitor.
The feathers shook loose like silent screams.

"No—no, no, no—"
I whispered into the rushing wind,
hands clawing at nothing,
grasping at memory,
reaching for warmth.

I wasn't ready
I had just begun to believe...
to hope
and already,
the earth was calling me back
like a prison I thought I’d escaped.

I begged.
God, I begged.
Let me stay a little longer
let me burn for just one more second
just one more glance,
one more flicker of your light
against my skin.

I screamed your name
a soundless cry against the roaring wind,
a child’s sob for a mother who’s already gone.

“Please”

But the sun
does not answer prayers
from falling men.

I watched you shrink above me
a god retreating,
indifferent to the worship
that broke me.

I began to sob mid-air
not because of the pain,
but because it was over.
Because I knew
you would go on
glorious,
radiant,
untouched
and I would become
a cautionary tale.

A ruin.

A boy who flew
for the wrong reasons.

And yet...

I smile.

Yes
I smile.

Because I saw the sun.

I touched light.

Because even if you never loved me,
even if I was nothing more
than a momentary flicker
in the corner of your warmth,
I was alive in those seconds.
So unspeakably alive
it hurts just to remember.

You, with your** solar laughter**
you taught me
that pain can be beautiful,
and love can be laced with fire,
and that some things
are worth the fall.

So what if my wings gave out?
So what if I plummet still?

I would fly again.
I would fly again
and again
if it meant one more glimpse
of you glowing
in your unreachable grace.

Because some of us
the broken-hearted,
the relentless,
the damned
we do not ask for rescue.
We do not ask to be chosen.

We only ask
to be allowed
to burn.

And I?

I have burned for you
every day
since the day you said my name
like it meant nothing.

So go
rise.
Shine.
Let your brilliance grace the skin
of someone braver
someone whole.

I will stay here,
in the ruins of my flight,
building monuments from memory,
speaking to the sky
in a language you never learned,
wearing the scorch marks
like love letters
you forgot to sign.

Because I loved you.
God help me.
I loved you.

And in another life,
in another myth,
perhaps the sun softened
and the boy did not fall.

But here?
Here, I fell.

And I do not regret it.

Not even for a second.

[tame geyser]

@thick carbon has sent a notification! - @cunning nimbus @thick void

[tame geyser]

@plush geyser is now following @thick carbon.

[cold dirge]

:heart: @cunning nimbus has bookmarked this thread! :heart:

[plush geyser]

pullin tis in on my list

[tame geyser]

@radiant parcel is now following @thick carbon.

[radiant parcel]

its crazy i wasnt following yet

[stark path]

I watched you shrink above me
a god retreating,
indifferent to the worship
that broke me.

My god, Kindred.

[cold dirge]

:heart: @olive hatch has bookmarked this thread! :heart:

[tame geyser]

@olive hatch is now following @thick carbon.

[thick carbon]

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