Title: Icarus' Children

Summary: this one's for the kids with the paper wings

.

"What we have here is a dreamer. When she jumped she probably thought she could fly."

-The Virgin Suicides

.

Here's to the kids who forgot that they were born with legs, not wings.

To the girls who dreamed and wished on the dust of dying stars

and the boys who ran so fast they almost flew.

(But almost isn't good enough you know, so try harder.)

The disillusioned boys and girls who only wanted to fly and be as free as the birds in a crystal blue never-ending sky.

(and now here's your chance—just up the road there's a bridge and it's a long way down but the view is pretty)

Here's to the kids who tried and tried but they just couldn't do it

(almost over the edge, just tiptoe a little closer—and don't look down, don't look—)

So they built paper wings and tried to fly on their own

(she said, "how far can you fly with paper wings?"

"Not far," they told her but she did it anyway because she wanted to soar)

But they forgot—either they forgot or they just didn't listen—that you can't get far with paper wings—

(and it was nice for a while but a while isn't forever)

—and so they fell and fell and crashed and they burned because their wings broke down at the last minute, right when they could almost touch the sun, and so they became falling stars, fallen Angels with their broken wings as they tore through the sky

(like icarus who flew too close to the sun and his pretty little wings melted off, disappeared, gone for good and isn't that just nice?)

It was beautiful still, but tragic nonetheless

The girls had dreamed of bluer skies and brighter suns and happily ever afters that didn't just exist in books

and the boys had run so fast that they could have flown, could have soared, could have gone somewhere far far away (to places that existed only in fairy tales but somehow they would get there) but they always forgot that they had legs not wings

And in the end they all jumped believing they could fly

because they are dreamers and that is what they do

and it was a long way down but the view was pretty