Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
In a luminous lost space, my ego dissolved.
I’ve tasted the nectar, of cosmic resolve.
Through swirling patterns, a map would unfold.
I’ve traced the connections, of the timeless and bold.

A symphonic wonder, a radiant flow.
Where boundaries blurred, and darkness glowed.
The world expanded to a canvas so bright,  
And I, one of darkness, was bathed in its light.

My ego dissolves. What a gentle release.
I merge with it all, I merge with its peace.
The unity of being all truth was revealed.
In every single pulse, a bond is being sealed.

I observed full potential in a quantum bound space.
My energy, my soul. We morph with the waves.
In this transcendence, did I finally belong?
I’ve stitched harmonies from an out of tune song.

No darkness lives here, no shadows to hide,
Just pure ecstasy on an ever-living tide.
The veil, it lifted. Revealing the mind.
With every atom, sculpting this sacred design.
Laokos 4d
a hot summer night.
the world was a kiln
and we were clay,
hardening, sweating,
baking in it.

I walked by his door
and saw him—
left wide open like an invitation.
he was sleeping.
my father.

curled up in the fetal position,
no blankets,
just underwear.
the room dark
except for the faint
glow his iphone
lighting the back of his head
like a halo with low battery.
his iPad in front of him,
casting a pale blue wash
across his gut.
he looked like he was
plugged in.
dreams streaming through
a USB cord.

he looked so tired.
vulnerable.
like a deadweight puppet
left on stage
after the curtain’s dropped.

like he wouldn’t survive
whatever was coming next.

like he was still
just a kid
from small-town North Dakota
who wanted to fall in love
and did
but that mother left
years ago—
quiet as a predator
cutting his strings on the way out.  

and now he doesn’t
know how to move
without someone
controlling him.

so he just lies there—
the man
after the werewolf’s gone,
sleeping off the transformation.

breathing hard
in the electric glow
of a humming digital womb.
Jonathan Moya May 28
Between the Waves  

There was never a single border,  
only the shifting tide of language,  
guavas glowing in the heat,  
the churn of Spanglish rolling in  
before the tide could pull it back.

At the checkout line, the cashier asks,  
"Paper or plastic?"—so simple, so sharp.
I glance at Mama, but her words stick,  
caught between lips and hesitation.
I answer for us. The shame clings,  
her silence louder than any mistake.

Each summer, my abuela arrived  
with stories curled like conch shells,  
her voice full of salt and lineage,  
each word a bridge we crossed halfway,  
somewhere between knowing and forgetting.

She tells me of the women before us,  
how her mother boiled guava leaves  
to ease the aches of growing bones,  
how a girl’s silence could mean strength  
but never surrender. “You carry oceans,”  
she says, pressing a shell into my palm.
"Listen, and you will always know  
where you come from."  

In the humid dusk, I traced my name  
in sidewalk chalk, watched rain  
blur it into something new.
Could memory be pliant? Could belonging  
be washed and reshaped by the wind?

But what of the body—  
its slow turning, the way girlhood folds  
like an old dress, pressed into something new?
What of the hands that will cradle, will teach,  
will shape another name into the world?

I watch my mother’s weary eyes,  
the way she smooths the hem of her days,  
thumb and forefinger pressing the fabric,  
flattening something unseen.
I wonder if I will smooth my own worry  
the way she does—without pause,  
without breaking.

Outside, the cicadas rasp,  
their voices a low and constant hum,  
a pulse threading through the thick heat  
like something old, something knowing.

Here, the neon hum of the city never rests,  
palm fronds shudder against the skyline,  
the edge between past and present dissolving,  
Miami swallowing whole every homecoming,  
every goodbye never quite gone.

At the bodega, my friends are waiting,  
laughing too loud, pressing tamarind candy  
into my palm, the sticky sweetness clinging—  
a small amber stone, a promise of what remains.
We swap bracelets—plastic beads clinking—  
a quiet oath in neon-lit safety.

But between jokes, between  
sips of cola and smudged lip gloss,  
I catch glimpses—mothers’ tired hands,  
names that slip too easily from memory,  
the weight of futures we pretend not to see,  
just for now, just for tonight.

Still, the tamarind sticks,  
a sharpness beneath its sweetness,  
as if warning—this is not just candy,  
but proof of change, proof that  
what is soft can still pull,  
what is sweet can still sting.

As I walk home, salt on my lips,  
the moon folds itself into the bay,  
the water whispering,  
"Listen, listen,"
until it carries the answer away.

Somewhere, I smooth my sleeve,  
flattening the fabric beneath my palm.
I am not my own strength – nor am I my own words
I am not the sum of silver, or rich as the world,
Nor even close to a sliver of gold.

I am not my future – or any better than my own past
I am all of my mistakes made in the present,
And all of the things, hoping to come to pass
Nowhere near a love that endures without question –
Nor the calm; being a life of many, many scars.

I am the quiet battles, that tears praise my triumphs,
The stillness in inner storms, battling emotional riots –
Marvel of flesh, fragile code; built of miracle science
Living in society’s endless bias, where the little
You hope to give, is the hope that will be trampled
Beneath the heels of Giants.

A faith that’s ALWAYS under intense heat
And so many pressures; pressed and refined,
I emerge as a Beautiful Diamond.
Jonathan Moya May 26
After all the operations, after the slow unraveling,  
I trace the shimmer left behind,  
a pearl forming in the absence of what was—  
the weight of my steps lighter, not in grace,  
but in uncertainty mixed with hope.  

I do not run anymore  
Yet, I watch Tom Cruise sprint, sprint—  
limbs loose, effortless at sixty-two,  
vaulting over rooftops,  
clinging to the side of airplanes,  
breathing forever underwater.  

He crashes, bruises, bleeds in theory,  
but never in flesh—  
his smile intact, his hair untouched,  
a muscular chest absorbing each blow,  
with no marks,  
no limp, no hesitation.  
I content myself with the thought
that I am the real mission impossible,
the one facing the final dead reckoning.

Sure,  I sit here, reckoning with the
dead weight  of legs that will not vault,  
feet that drag instead of sprint,  
watching a man outrun time itself,  
as I count the losses my body cannot ignore.  

Neuropathy hums in my hands,  
a static whisper beneath the skin,  
feet waiting for signals that never arrive.  
Pouchitis returns, rhythmic,  
a ghost cycle that feels almost natural,  
a body remembering what it should forget.  

And yet—there is something else.  
Not just the loss, not just the ache,  
but the way illness made me listen,  
the way it softened the edges of my voice,  
the way it let me hold my wife’s hand  
with a reverence I never knew before.  

I see faces at the mall, at the movies—  
those moving without thought,  
and those like me, learning how to walk again.  
I see my brother’s quiet grief and joy,  
my own reflected back in his silence.  

To confront death is to speak to it,  
to name it,  
to let it sit beside you,  
to let it teach you how to be human.  

I am a better poet for this.  
Not for the suffering,  
but for the softness it left me.  

And somewhere within the nacre,  
within the slow layering of survival,  
I am still here.
of survival,  
I am still here.
Cadmus May 24
🦅

Fly,
fierce child,
into the ruthless blue;

Let winds unmake you,
they will make you true.

The sky is cruel
but it remembers one:

The heart that dares to burn
brighter than the sun.

☀️
This poem is a brief invocation of courage, a metaphorical push from the ledge, urging the bold spirit to embrace risk, transformation, and pain as rites of passage. The “ruthless blue” is not only the sky but the vast unknown, the unforgiving realm of truth and transcendence. Only by allowing oneself to be “unmade” by elemental forces can the self be reforged into something authentic and luminous.
JAMIL HUSSAIN May 17
Rise—for even the heavens seem displeased with your sleep, O’ unripe heart!
You've lost that lightning, that spectacle, that celestial art.

How long will you slumber in the chains of dust and clay?
You are a spark that even destiny cannot delay.

Know thyself—for you are the light of the eternal scheme,
One piercing glance of yours can resurrect a dream.

If you will it, you can command the stars in flight—
If not, your fate remains a captive of endless night.

This world depends on you—you are the rhythm of time,
Drunken self-forgetfulness has robbed you of your prime.

Set fire to every tune that moans the dirge of imitation,
Transform yourself—the current of time bends to your creation.

Ignite a longing, birth a flame, become a living blaze—
Let a tempest rise in your heart, and dawn break through your gaze.

You are not merely a drop in the ocean’s vast expanse—
You are the ocean itself, flowing free in your sacred dance.
A Call from Beneath the Dust 17/05/2025 © All Rights Reserved by Jamil Hussain
Jonathan Moya May 17
The Widening Sky**  

I feel myself shrinking,  
walking the night beach  
under the ever-widening sky.  

The sand clings to my feet,  
then is washed away  
in the tide’s haste  
to kiss the shore,  
only to recoil  
when it tastes  
the grit of life—  

the ancient attraction-repulsion  
born the moment  
the first creature rose from the sea,  
breathed, lingered  
on the still, silent sand.  

And I recall my mother’s lullaby,  
a hushed song that once swayed the air,  
telling of the slip that heard  
Mother Ocean call—  
no longer a command  
but a longing,  

a tide reaching, retreating,  
pleading for what once was hers:  

"Oh, dear sea-child of mine,  
I weep when I hear  
your quiet refusal—  
you will not return  
to my salt-bound embrace."
  

Her voice, low and wavering,  
held the weight of salt-laden sorrow,  
a plea stretched thin  
like foam dissolving at the shore.  
Each refrain a remnant,  
each pause a hesitation—  
as though waiting for me  
to answer.  

From behind and beyond,  
the feelers of Calypso unfurl,  
know of the colorfully dressed  
streams that live in pastel houses—  

my neighbors’ voices, celebrating on  
the tarmac street, carving a clean  
divide between sand and sea  
and the subdivision’s order.  

Not hands nor voices,  
but motion and rhythms,  
a swirl of sounds  
pulsing under steel drums—  

a force, a motion,  
the sway of limbs,  
a rhythm spilling from windows,  
tugging my breath,  
threading through the percussive air.  

And yet, beyond the curb’s edge,  
the tide still stretches,  
its foamy fingers outstretched—  
not grasping, not demanding,  
just waiting—  
lapping once, twice,  
a quiet pulse returning  
to the depths.  

The wind gathers the tide’s sigh,  
folds it into the music of the street,  
lifts it beyond houses, beyond roads,  
carrying the hush of salt and longing  
farther than any wave could reach—  

where, in the cooling night,  
a trace of brine lingers in the air,  
where the wind turns brackish,  
faint as a whisper,  
the ocean still breathing its call,  
a whisper curling at the edge of sound,  
the ocean still exhaling its call.  

I see a conch shell in the glowing darkness,  
pick it up, watch its pink body  
retract into its protective shelf.  

I feel awe at this tiny creature's ability  
to deny my ear the simple desire  
to hear the song of the ocean.  

I drop it on the sand,  
witness the tide kiss and cradle it.  

For a moment, I stay still,  
listening—  
to the hush of salt and steel drum echoes,  
to the tide’s patient pull  
and the rhythms spilling through open windows.  

Something shifts.  

The pull of the tide is no longer stronger  
than the pulse of the street.  
I withdraw into the nacre of myself,  
disappearing so far into the dark  
that I vanish from the night’s sight.  

Then, Calypso draws me to the block party.  
In the haze of the streetlight,  
I am the same size as all the other revelers—  

no more or less significant than  
anyone else in this vast sea of love.
Cadmus May 15
⛈️

When she left,
she left like rain,
Soft regret,
a touch of pain.

A fleeting storm
you live right through,
A wound, the light
can filter through.

Then she walked through someone’s door,
She shook the walls,
she split the floor.

What seemed to him like gentle air
Became a firestorm
unaware.
A woman broken is not a woman ended. She leaves as a whisper, but pain reforges her into something untamed. What once loved gently can return with teeth. This is not vengeance… it’s evolution.
Jonathan Moya May 15
The empty lot of the abandoned car dealership
is overrun with dandelions, thistles, and sticker weeds.

On the right is a Baptist church standing
sternly against the invasive plants.  

The ministry’s gardener sprays Roundup
on the weaker creepers while his assistant
uses a torch on the deeply rooted ones.  

On the left is a BBQ specializing in Nashville Hot Chicken.  

Congregants fill the abandoned spaces on Sundays,
parking in every white-lined spot.  

On weekdays, the meat, pork, and poultry adherents
occupy the fringes of the cracked tarmac.

Saturdays are the days for the wildflowers to bloom,
the sticker weeds to cling to the cuffs of children’s pants,
and the hindquarters of every sniffing dog.

Church festival days were the time for the lot to be filled
with popcorn, churro, and taco carts-
ring toss, balloon pop, and fish bowl toss booths-
a bounce house, and the heroes of the Bible
obstacle course for the children.

Halloween week was the one time the BBQ joint
had the lot to itself. It erected a tent of horror
filled with demons, bedsheet ghosts, and demented chainsaw-wielding dwarves. The finale featured
the patrons being strapped to an altar and exorcised
by a defrocked priest and ******* clad nuns.

The other scary ride was the tunnel of love and marriage.  Couples were faux-married by a maniacal judge and,
by the end, were divorced by the jurist’s serial killer twin. What happened in between the nondisclosure agreements everyone signed kept it all private and secret.

Since the horror house made a lot of money and the church received a large sponsor donation,    
the deacons ignored the false sins and degradations.
  
Anyway, by Monday, the altar was gone,  
the neon horror tent collapsed and  
the sticker weeds reclaimed their corners,  
waiting for the next act.

Most days, I drive past it all—the sermons,
the spice rub, the ghost  dealership, the exorcisms,  
and I wonder if this patch of cracked asphalt  
knows what it is. Or if it even matters.

But nothing stops the dandelions from
dancing in the breeze and car exhaust air,
singing their minor chord hallelujahs to life.
        
On Sundays the faithful return to their pulpits.
By Fridays, the altar is a karaoke stage,  
with the pastor belting out “Highway to Hell”  
between deep-fried sermons.

And then lunch at the BBQ on the other side.
Next page