celestial speeding tickets

my overheating pistons sputter on,
sparked by a dampened rage,
cried against the stairway that separates
me and them, men and cherubs:
students with myrrh-streaming report slips,
unforsaken sons of impeccable parents,
peer-anointed and teacher-crowned.

when it burns this leaded gasoline
of comparatives and superlatives,
its soot coats my skin,
scratches my lungs, blinds my eyes,
i can’t see the road.

the engine still pumps as icarus did flap;
its rhythm mocks the fluttering signages
turned to warnings in the haze
‘stop’, ‘danger’, ‘reduce speed now’

and when i crash,
i hear those very angels;
they tell me how they thudded down the stairway long ago,
how the smoke from their crash darkened talons
that hide coyly underneath unblemished wings,

i too am growing feathers.