By Kayli Harley, TIWP Student

She’d spent her life looking eastward,
turning her face toward the sun
in something like a prayer. 
Perhaps she was begging,
or maybe she simply sought
 a moment of warmth and silence
in a world blanketed in frigid chaos. 

Either way, 
she looked to the sunlight
to fill something in her
that has always seemed empty. 
The sensation of the light touching her skin
felt an awful lot 
like something in her shadow was melting,
but every time she looked back
it appeared the same. 
She had the better sense to know
that appearances are almost always deceiving. 

For instance, she often wondered
how she could feel so much like Icarus
with her feet planted firmly on the ground. 
Perhaps that was what she felt 
melting in her shadow, 
the wings the world 
didn’t trust her to possess. 

She never had any hope to find them
until the sun rose one morning
and she decided to rise with it. 
She packed a single bag, 
leaving everything else
to the chill of the developing day. 

She followed the flame’s path east,
burning the entire journey home.