Hummingbird (trochilidae): the smallest birds, named for the humming sound that occurs when they beat their wings. Their wings beat an average of 70-200 times per second; their hearts 1,200 bpm.
She is an automaton
made of scrap metal,
junk yard pieces salvaged
into tarnished titanium skin.
Ligaments of tangled cables and
frayed wires intertwine,
joints of rusted gears with chipped teeth
grate in dissonance
to a music box's gilded lullaby.
Darkness whispers mellifluous lies
amid nightmares that taste of rusted bronze,
saccharine pills that melt on her tongue.
She is a simulacrum,
a forgotten replica of life
etched in indelible scars,
burdened by Icarus's wings
that forgot how to fly.
A mockingjay caged in her throat of brass
echoes a hollow, preprogrammed laugh.
Gasoline flows through copper veins,
a kerosene burn ignited by every oxygen breath,
amaranths suffocating in her lungs.
She is the music box ballerina
twirling to innocent lines,
her eyes of shattered glass
stained with ink tears,
her lips sealed in a painted smile.
And beneath the cracked crown,
the faded fairy tale ending,
butterflies still dance on
with moth-eaten, bullet hole wings.
She is the tin man,
a tarnished facade of iron,
an elysian solace of lost dreams.
She is glass shards and shattered light,
ashes and toxic daffodils,
kintsugi and golden veins,
broken and battered and bruised,
and she is
the fragile tremor of wings
humming in a rusted chest,
She is
the heart that still beats
in the center of it all.
YOU ARE READING
On Icarus Wings
Poesíabut what became of the boy whose dreams were carried on broken angel wings?
