For those who have no gift to see,
There is naught but cruel reality.
But for those with mind and heart in stock,
The hidden doors of life unlock,
And pour out treasures beyond compare-
Simple treats, like cold, clean air-
Or a sunset ripe with firey soul,
The stillness of water inside a plain bowl;
A flower sweet on Spring's hillside,
The thump in our veins that keeps us alive;
A roll of thunder, and mornings song-
These are the virtues to be claimed all along.
What can't be seen by hurried man
Are things more precious than they understand;
For man may rush and push and live by the hour,
But time is wasted when you dont smell the flowers.

I realize that the time we have won’t be enough.
If you add all the moments up....
You have a lifetime that flashed by in the blink of an eye.
& Maybe if I can count all our moments together...
Instead I will have an eternity to share.
Today, I am 23 and tomorrow I shall be flowers arising.
I clench and whisper to myself to remember every detail.
Feeling the moments slipping.
As the way life arises into consciousness & then out to oblivion.
I am reminded that all of myself is only the parts in which I can recollect.
My mind the only bridge from meaningful to meaningless.
I pinch my crisp blue jeans in hopes that I can still feel that I exist.
I can feel my unmanicured nails piercing my skin through my jeans.
All in hopes of penetrating the impermanence nature of this moment.
The hourglass drips a grain of sand at a time.
Yet, it only takes a second for a desert to form.
Maybe on the edge of the world standing upon a desert I can find solace. 
Finding comfort instead of fear about where I end and the infinite begins.

One day,
Through the dragged out hours,
I find a temporary happiness,
Lasting only but a moment,
Just enough to get me by for another night,
Alas, now some joy seems to fade,
Dulled by my weighed mind,
Still, there is hope for me yet,
A fragment of my true self remains,
Kept alive by friends;
The ones who care.

- Jay M
October 24th, 2018

The thin bare bones of a silence that was

Shattered calm, a mirror cracked

Snapped underfoot like a plastic toy

Smashed, a fragile thing destroyed

Beauty broken by a careless word!

a man
in the crowd
is a page in the book
one of the many
in a stack

a man
standing alone,
is a lost page, of poetry.

They invite you to dwell on nothing and everything at once. Oddities that soften the sounds that surround you and amplify the beat of life in each breath you take. Far from strangers but hidden in plain sight. Indulging your focus through a narrow tunnel view. Dilating your pupils and lifting your skin through spontaneous extraordinary sensory awareness while depriving you the passage of time. A temporal trap in eternity before you snap and walk away.

Take rare moments here
Keep perfection protected
Memories stay safe

I hold the lighter
to light up her cigarette
and as I see her silhouette in de dark,
I wonder

can I also light up her life like that,
can I make it better
can I be a small, bright light.