Finally, no longer does she wear sweaters in summer.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Slip down the *****, zipping and zooming.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Our love is a spinning chair.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Is the depth of grief.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

The most clever of disguises.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Quomodo es

Tu et ego

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

In all fairness, who is truly whole?

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

But I see only faceless teenagers.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Flores se llore, tambien los nubes y colores,
Y nuevos se brinca, ariba por el cielo.

- Jay M
October 13th, 2022

Entrance, beautifully passionate dance
Your radiant light, chords take flight
Explore in your tangling wilderness
Call out if it were your show
Grow in your brilliant glow.

- Jay M
October 14th, 2022

Oh to dream
Of dear friends
Whom would never,
Could never think of you
In the same way that you dare to;
Funny things are those in dreams

Funny how you dream
Of strong arms wrapped around
Holding your small torso safely
Only to awake, to find they were never there

Funny how you dream
Of being spooned gently
When it would never,
Could never come to pass

Funny how you dream
Of a delicately shared kiss
Ever so tender and sweet
Only to awaken, knowing it would never,
Could never truly be

Funny how you dream
Of being on a persons mind
Awakening to know you are wrong

In dreams, you dance and sing,
Whilst upon awakening,
You sit, remaining quiet;
How funny, how sad

In dreams you laugh, smile together,
Cherishing every little moment,
Whilst upon awakening,
You merely glance,
Faintly manage a smile,
Longing for a conversation
Even a single minute longer;
How funny, how laughable,
How pitiful are you whom dare dream

What a shame,
Dreaming about such things,
About a person whom,
More likely than not,
Sees you as a mere pest.

- Jay M
October 10th, 2022

Suffer in my skin
Burn, itch, scream
Scratch and bleed
Peel away, fall away
The dead make way
To bring forth more
All to die, all to be shed
To crash and be forgotten
Scars scarcely to fade

Suffer in my clothes
Fabrics conceal
But only for so long
Before they must be torn away
Cast aside, as others before
To be cleansed and worn anew
Each day bringing new sentiment
Or perhaps only for a single moment
A single day, to cherish or to lament.

- Jay M
September 23rd, 2022

Troubling times
Trickier still are the uncertain
The questioning, the curious
The disconnected and unsure

Caught, perhaps, in an illusion
The unforeseen, dismantled reality
For what could this be,
Than the utterly surreal?

Spirit in flux
Or whatever it may be
A mere observer in this place
So familiar…yet not meant to be
Not quite like before
Before being encapsulated
By this most strange dream

Is it a dream, this odd feeling?
This faded, jaded land that surrounds
The very air seems confused
The trees unsure how to sway
The birds misleading and disoriented
Or perhaps it is I who is disoriented?
Or whatever “I” may be…

Who am I, who is this?
This stranger whom gazes back
Through the looking glass
Features once akin to me,
Now they look back,
Rather a stranger than reflection

A body, a vessel
Piloted by a soul
A skeleton propelled
Drawn on and on
Drag the weary feet
Or perhaps take a break
Switch flipping in the mind
Walking, breathing, responses
Nodding and moving
Without thought, without wondering
With memory as a guide
Until the moment breaks
Waking up, back in control
Where have you gone?

Unfeeling, unyielding
Pinch, scratch, burn
Release, escape
Desiring to awaken…
But all assure you,
“You are awake.”

- Jay M
September 19th, 2022

Born of a dream
Into flesh and bone
Ripped apart to regrow.

- Jay M
September 14th, 2022

Falling through the parallels
Cascading into the unknown
Vast expanse of the cosmos
Drifting through realities
Concepts close, yet so foreign
Crashing through layers of understanding
Slipping away into the indescribable void

Dark and unfeeling
Unsure of any heavens or hells
Valhalla or helheim, underworld or elysium
Disconnected for seeming eternities
To be caught in flux, in transcendence
While still encapsulated within mortal vessels
Souls kept within strange quarters
Pilots of flesh and bone

Journey through the expanse
Venture into plains untouched
Seen, but never disturbed
Sacred lands, without defined boundary
Effervescent luminescence,
Fluid and undefined
Perhaps a vision of the ethereal
Or voyage into the astral.

- Jay M
September 13th, 2022

Wooden door, wooden door
I shall enter you evermore
With weary feet or woeful mind
Your locks never hard to find
Opened by many keys, over many years
Mine of gleaming crimson red

Beyond the threshold
Into the depths of my despair
Washing over like an intoxicating wave
Slowly yet ever so surely
Knowing this is their sacred lair
Since I was but a young child
Seven years in this dismal house
Break a mirror, and of course
Hope the misfortune would be gone
Faded after seven years

But is it so,
That the misfortune had anywhere
Anywhere else to go than here?
As I pace these bleak halls
Of blank white and dust
Floor creaking upon uncertain steps
Sounds surely to fall upon
Overly critical ears
Wooden door, wooden door,
I shall pass through you evermore
Many times you’ve been slammed
Other times sheltering the world
From wars of words, of hatred
Fear and violence echo here,
Echo in the still of night
In the near silence of their slumber
But I do not sleep, I cannot dare
I lay awake, night after night
Dreamer am I, shall I always be
Grant me freedom, wooden door
Grant it to me in due time,
Oh wooden door,
Grant it to me evermore.

- Jay Martinez
September 12th, 2022

Gown of black
Covers the flesh
The weary legs
Propelling a ****** shell
A walking, talking hell

Boots of black
Cover sore soles
Worn from the miles
Within these shoes
Take them now
To then endow
What this soul
Has yet to sow

Veil of black
Covers a visage
The tired, dim eyes
Gateways to a fractured soul
Wailing, crying out, as does a wraith
Mourning the greatest of losses
A grand, widely gaping grief
For the sorrow and woeful
Most soul retching cry
Of a lovers loss

Keeping still the black veil
A crown upon the head
Heavy is the silver helm
Upon a fatigued skull
Full of fear and dread

A queen without her king
Fallen at her own hand
Her pen, ink, and word
All bid the love goodbye
Their hearts to surely die

As their kingdom crumbles
Stones crash to the ground
Their castle descends to the sea
From whence it came to be
A castle built stone by stone
To fall but once again
As the very earth rumbles
Quaking in the divide
A ruin on either side

The queen, her part of the land
Once so thriving and grand
Only to fall by her own hand;
From a land of bountiful prosperity
To but a wasteland of humanity

The queen, she walks among the ruins
Rubble scatters the once sacred ground
To rest heavily at her weary feet
Seeming to admit defeat

Into the old chambers,
The throne room they once shared,
Split at the space between the seats
Now ever so lonely she stands
Upon the cliff so steep and grand
The great divide of ancient land

Seated upon her throne of stone
Cracked and deeply worn
Now it seem it were
Surrounded by spine and thorn
Protecting the exhausted queen
Despite all internal protest
She warily sits to rest

Her subjects come to her cries
From her long cold bed,
She cries and cries but will not sleep
Remaining awake only to weep
Wrapped in her linen sheet
Longing for a distant warmth
Knowing it shall not return
T'was but a lesson to be learned

Rise and rule the day,
The queen knows that she must,
She sits upon her throne on high
Her knights to guard her people
Her heralds to aspire the people
Their souls, one day, to rest

The queen, forever she overthinks
Thinks once, then twice, then thrice again
As any a queen should hope before
Making but a single request

The queen, she rules over the dark
Her word is her solemn command
She considers her people with care
Before do anything she dare

The tired queen, she stands to greet
The soldiers of her fleet
To sail their hearts out to sea
No more, in this time they shall not flea
To tie up their ships to the docks
Not again to leave the harbor
Of their greatest labor

As the days go by and by
She stands and heavily sighs
Her people, they reflect her state
And quite frankly, as of late
They appear more ghostly than
The specters of her mind

As her sorrow grows and spreads
So, too, do the wraith-like folk
Of her long, forgotten land
Broken by her trembling hand
Both land, and fragile heart

Seated somberly upon her throne
The queen, her pain is known
Far and wide, beyond the reaches
Of her sullen, gloom filled lands

As the word spreads
To lands far and vast
The tales of her past
They know her by one name
At last she holds her title, bound;
The Queen of the ******.

- Jay M
September 7th, 2022