You compare him to Apollo a lot. It’s the first thing you notice, right after the wrong shade of blue in his eyes or the way his smile writes appreciation instead of love on your skin. You watch him curl around your shell as if he tries to fill all the places where you burned and the holes where the wind pipes through. He calls you beauty and sugar and sunshine and you watch him get up in the morning and lay down in the evening and all you feel is remorse and a terribly frightening ache for something that is no longer anymore. You leave him before the tenth dawn breaks. Your name is Icarus. You burned for this.
You compare him to Apollo even before he has a chance to say his name. His eyes have the wrong colour but his hair has the same soft feeling of feather kisses in the morning. You watch him peel grapefruits in the warm summer sun and write a medicine essay that is due the next day and you kiss him with swollen lips and you wait for your world to slow, to burn, to drown but the kiss ends and neither of these things happen. He calls you love and sweetheart and sunstarved and you watch him lean over the table to give you the last bit of cereal out of the box and all you taste is the sting of blood behind your teeth. You leave him before a week breaks into a month. Your name is Icarus. You fell for this.
You compare him to Apollo after the second shot when the smoke stings in your eyes and the blinding neon lights cast different gloomy shades upon the pale flesh of his throat. He laughs at something you said but it’s the wrong sound, too carefree, too mortal compared to the broken record of Apollo’s choked up sobs you were used to. You watch him lick the salt off his lips and bend over the table to whisper in your ear - want to see my place? - and you lean closer, bite your tongue - sure - and he calls you beautiful and ravishing and sunkissed and all you can hear is the dead beat of your heart that still tells you you’re alive but you don’t believe it anymore. You leave him before the night ends. Your name is Icarus. You drowned for this.
You compare him to Apollo when he calls your name and you watch the dark, unbruised knuckles of his hands curl around your shoulders. He presses kisses into your spine as if he tries to write poems on your bones and you wait for the bite and you wait for your skin to peel like wax but instead it feels like soothing balm on sunburned skin. He calls you beloved and his world and sunlight and you watch him dream of a future with his hands in yours and promises of a dawn worth staying for but all you can smell is the pungent stench of petrol and burned flesh that scorches from your back. You leave him spent on sheets before the summer ends. Your name is Icarus. You crushed for this.
You compare him to Apollo again. It’s the last thing that you notice, right after the way he speaks in lovesongs and carries his body in shadows instead of light. He writes your name in the sand and you watch the waves cover it up again and again and the sun bleeds into your skin instead of his. He calls you pretty boy and lovely and his sun when he chews on gum because he gave up smoking months ago and all you notice is the red that drips from the place where your heart should be and the bright blue of a pair of eyes you no longer see. You leave him with the sun blinding you on the horizon. Your name is Icarus. You died for this.
Hunting the Sun | r.m published in Sunchoked
