Some boys disappear into obedience.
He didn’t.
He just burned.
They said sit down.
He stood.
They said blend in.
He wore fire.
Applause was safer than affection.
A spotlight doesn’t flinch when you get too close.
He learned to read a room like a script.
Smile like a threat.
Charm like a blade in a velvet sheath.
And oh, they loved him.
Especially when he almost crashed.
The blazer came with crests and codes.
He rewrote both.
Prefect by day, chaos by evening.
High grades, low patience.
Sharp edges on a shining boy.
Thomas is reckless to the point of endangering himself and others,
the report read.
He underlined it.
Pinned it in his chest like a medal.
He flew planes.
He rode fast.
He kissed girls like secrets.
He spoke in boldface, lived in italics.
And the world, at first,
mistook the heat for light.
But heat exhausts.
And light, misused,
burns bridges you were meant to cross later.
He joined the military.
Found comfort in command,
in precision mistaken for peace.
Risk became ritual.
Adrenaline wore epaulettes.
Danger became doctrine.
And still, something gnawed.
He could lead.
But never quite belong.
The tragedy of Icarus
isn’t the fall.
It’s that no one taught him how to land.
And Daedalus didn’t look back.
Now, in stiller years,
he traces the scars that medals can’t see.
Still drawn to velocity.
Still dancing with the edge.
But slower now.
Sharper? Maybe.
He’s learned to circle the sun without apology.
Because the wax was never the problem.
It was the silence beneath the wings.
And he was never just pretending.
He was Icarus, emblazoned.
Reade Saunders 
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