Greetings readers, I am a freelance writer named Icarus Volant. As the name suggests, my mortality is inescapable.

How does one, who feels the warm rays of freedom upon his entire body, listen to his parent’s advice and turn away from the extraordinary.

In Greek mythology, Icarus who flew too close to the sun against his father’s wishes, melts away his makeshift wings causing him to fall tragically into the ocean.

Volant, my given name, is used to describe beings naturally capable of flight.

I am Icarus Volant. A man who finds he doesn’t need wings to fly.

When I fell out of the sky, the constructs of my identity pulled out of my skin like the feathers of a hen being prepared for diner.

I thought I knew who I was, I thought I knew my purpose, yet it all dissolved by flying too close to the sun.

As I fell, I was left without any direction, tumbling towards certain doom. I flapped my arms in a pathetic display of helplessness.

I hit the surface of the ocean with an icy reality.

I’m alone in the sea.

This was, simultaneously, the most painful and healing moment of my life.

The immense ocean of loneliness was crushing me, wave by wave, with no acknowledgment of my existence.

I let go of my expectations of life; the football scholarship, the marketing degree, the dream upper-middle class house, the sitcom cookie cutter family, the typical capital driven career.

In it’s replace,

I dreamed of treading water for just one more breath.

Let me explain the healing.

When the roof, the walls, the scaffolding, the frame, the foundation, when all of those constructs that were placed in your mind by TV, family, neighbors, friends, books, movies, smartphones, and advertisements. When it’s all ripped from you, and nothing is left but dust.

Something happens.

It’s innate. It’s intrinsic. It’s the irresistible desire to….

Create.

Words left my lips and solidified my amorphous reality. I was still in the ocean. Yet, I was on a platform of my creation. My art. Newly discovered in a moment of desperation it saved me from drowning.

That is why I write.

Here are the stories that allow me to fly again.