Icarian Wounds

I am drawn.
I am drawn to light, and the fire beneath it;
to burning, to falling, to giving. 

I am drawn to a world that needs,
to love that’s boundless, beyond the edges of safety—
A love that isn’t safe, 
A world that is unsafe.
Am I falling away from humanity?

I’ve loved this world with a fierceness,
an Icarian flight, a blaze in my chest.
But as my wings wear thin,
and the wax begins to melt,
I fear I’ll lose sight of its beauty.

There is darkness in this fall,
a shadow where beauty fades,
where even my own reflection
is too dim to see. 
Have I given more than this world can hold?
Who cradles soul wounds when they throb?

I stand at the edge of my own spirit,
feeling the space between trusting and fearing,
Loving and leaving,
Giving and surrendering.

Tonight I wonder what’s left to give.
Maybe there’s courage, even here—
In the tenderness of landing,
In the willingness to rise,
To keep loving this world, and myself,
even in the shadow and ashes,
even in the wound,
even in the fall.

-Julia