by David M. Alper
You were never the boy who fell. You were the boy who
jumped. Let them call it hubris— you call it hunger.
Your father warned you Don’t fly too high, but he never
said why the sky was like liberty and the sea like a tomb
you’d already crawled out of.
You stitched your wings upon each other from the gap
between his commands. Your mother’s pillowcase.
Candle wax drips which you were never meant to burn.
You did, however. You burned the house down
before ever departing it.
They say you fell. But you remember the sun as a kiss that
opened you up. You remember the air as a lover who held
you too tight. You remember the ocean as the first place
you were ever allowed to scream.
You are not the legend. You are the revision. The boy
who flew because he didn’t want to crawl any more.
The boy who burned because he understood what cold was.
David M. Alper is a New York City educator. He has previously published work in The McNeese Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, and elsewhere.
Hawaii Pacific Review 