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Martina Jul 2021
They met on the equinox like spirits out of an ancient myth,
To paint the leaves gold and kiss the summer goodbye.
For a brief moment, everything did turn shiny and new, solid.

But Frost came, reminding that Nothing Gold Can Stay
And they grew brown and dry.
Winter went by,
Silent and haunting like a ghost:
White sheets thrown on a body made of fire to suffocate the flame.

They met again for a pink and a red moon,
In some mystical manner once more,
To break and wreak havoc
And divide.

The storm drowned Percy on the coasts of Italy, 'heart of hearts' written on the stone.
They sent his to Mary in England,
Its resting place a dusty drawer for years.

At least he didn't turn around to see her,
She didn't disappear.
Martina Apr 2023
I didn’t want to die running for my life,
Yet in the snake pit, being kissed by vipers felt sweeter
Than the bitter sting of men.

You cried on your lyre so beautifully
The winds stopped to listen,
And the gods obliged so mercifully
To let you take me over the threshold again.

If you can’t trust them, have faith in me:
Don’t look back and be my guide.
You never turned around when I followed for miles
The back of your head after we said goodnight.

But as your arms twitched the day I became a bride,
You can’t take me past the door again
And you look me in the eyes.

I don’t know if it’s because you love me too much
Or to say you got cold feet:
The outcome is the same.
You get to live unscathed and nothing of me remains.
Martina Nov 2018
I love and I hate it,
This prolific sadness of mine.
I love being prolific,
I hate being sad.

Yet, I wouldn't just stop at writing,
I'd like to cry, talk, scream.
If I talked,
I would turn either into an overflowing river
or maybe in a silent, grey stone.
What I feel cannot be conveyed
with words.

In this moment I'd kiss whoever crossed my way,
abruptly,
just to beat him to death immediatly after.
I need love,
I need destruction
in this moment.

The only thing I can think of
is my nakedness,
it costed me lots,
I wish I never gave it away like that.
t's all wrong,
all too embarassing.
too fast,
horrible.

I was right:
What I really am is not good.
I am not entirely sure myself of what is is.
I found unknown parts of my being everyday,
I'm not who I thought I was.

Maybe, I'm not.
Martina Jul 2021
Like a 21st century Snow White in her crystal casket,
You can find me in the frozen aisle, lying on a bed of ice cream tubs and chicken kievs,
Unconcious.

Slide the plexiglass door open,
Pick me up.
Do not worry if your freezer looks too small,
I can bend, I can fold.
You can consume me tonight, tomorrow, next week, six months from now and I won't expire.

It doesn't take too much to cook me,
Yet it shows you haven't done enough cooking in your life to know
That once meat is defrosted, you can't freeze it again and expect it to taste good.
Martina Mar 2020
I've been waiting with devotion
for a sign that never came.
I've been breaking my head on a solution
to my loneliness and my shame.

No answer is visible if you search -
you can only find -
make yourself your only church,
forget about love, the truth is blind.

No existent way to know,
try your best, fall and fail.
If you're after the green glow,
you'll eventually find it on your trail.

What is it you desire the hardest?
Recognition and affection,
someone to call dearest
or just your lost reflection?

Go back to last week,
when we already knew our freedom was limited.
Never saw a spring bloom so bleak,
our hopes so high yet so wounded.

Midnight talks until the morning
with a charming ghost that's half alive.
In my future he planted yearning
for an impossible strive.

Do I still waste time searching?
Have I found?
Another page is turning,
I'm screaming with no sound.
Martina May 2020
Love,
I've been trying to smother you with a pillow for the past few months.

I also thought I killed you, but today I don't know anymore, I can't rest my head on the ****** weapon and sleep peacefully.

I'm not a violent person,
killing is against my nature
and just the attempt is the most painful gesture I have ever made, forgive me, I had to.

Because I am me and unfortunately not someone else, certainly not someone you could want.
The difference is that I have to live with myself, without you coexistence is, if not pleasant, at least bearable.

And so I wanted to **** you, as I had already done with my parents.
What better way than to leave you with no air and let you squirm under your antithesis, which is not hatred, in fact, but refusing to feel something for fear of feeling anything at all.

I don't know what's going on tonight, you are alive and I can't stand it because I am still me.
I wish I could tell myself that I can change and be worthy of you, but I know that it's not true.

I know that when you are here I will still look at you from afar without saying anything, love,
because you are beautiful and you don't know it and I think someone should tell you.

But not me, it's not from me that you want to find out and it makes perfectly sense.
Martina Oct 2020
I killed all my plants by watering them too much.
I got so upset, I turned into a grumpy old man, shoUsing at people to stay away from my yard.
Still my sisters walk on the grass and I'm so glad they are

We don't share our blood: I have chosen my sisters and they have chosen me.
They are my sisters because they saw a present and not a parcel bomb, they weren't scared to open me up.

We are sisters because we've built a home from nothing, a family out of thin air.
We are sisters of the moon, witches, like in a cheesy TV series.
We bottle up each other's tears and brew potions to cure broken hearts.

We are each other's therapists, cooks, seamstresses, teachers, painters, muses.
Each other's conscience, speaking the hard truth, each other's mirror: reflecting the same image, yet one we wouldn't be able to see for ourselves.
Martina Jun 2019
In my memories
you sleep.
Sleep,
you have dreams tangled in your hair.
Sleep,
sleeping heals everything:
your skin rash and your busy hours.
Sleep,
I wait wide awake as I look at you.
Sleep,
because you always say you never sleep.
You sleep
so much that your eyelashes seem
to be sealed forever.
Sleep,
because I love you and yesterday
you loved me too and loving
requires a lot of effort and strength.
Sleep,
even now
that we don't know each other anymore.
Even now that we are strangers,
sleep.
Sleep,
because you are an idler,
always late,
sleep,
because the term is over.
Sleep,
because I sleep
and dream,
because I never remember my dreams.
Sleep and dream me,
even if we don't know each other,
even if you know where my birthmarks lay.
Martina Jun 2018
It hurts to finally understand
that in order to keep someone in your life
you must never declare your love.
Martina Oct 2020
In my dreams I saw a door, ajar.

A ray of light filtered through the darkness I was in, still I was afraid to open it. What if the light is so bright to leave me blind?
It took me a while to get used to the blue mist that covers everything in the dark, I'm not going to throw the effort away.

There were people going through the door; I caught glimpses of the room and seeing that there was nothing to fear, I got closer.
As I put my hand on the ****, I felt myself swing back and forth, being crossed from side to side, slammed, opened again, pushed and pulled.

I was the door: always a way station, a passage, a portal, something to be through with at some point, and never the room, never a place to dwell, never the destination.

I was bound to stay at the door, neither out, nor in, stuck in a limbo.
Never allowed in the room, kept away from the business, away from conversations, parties, meals, away from the endless stream of everyone else's existence.
Always a silent observer, peeping in.
Martina Jun 2018
Once you said to me
that my head is like a radio
that I listen to too many songs
written by too many different guys.
In your opinion I should change channel
or completely turn off the radio
and concentrate on my life.

Sometimes I think you were right,
but I believe in Murphy's law
and I know for sure that
the song I've been waiting for
will play once the radio is turned off.

Then you said that the radio will turn on by itself
when the time is right.
You listened to my song for a little while,
just the time to decide it wasn't for you
and get back to your old-all-time-favourite.

I was hurt and happy at the same time,
because you were happy too
and because someone, finally
paid some attention to my tunes.
Martina Oct 2020
Today I had an abortion.
I held the foetus in my hands, still hot, covered in blood, so tiny, yet so recognisable in its incomplete finishedness.
I was at a loss, it hit me slowly at first, then all at once, I started to cry.

It wasn't unexpected, I've been having this weird feeling lately, as if I knew that I wasn't going to see it live.
I felt like that from the start, to be honest, my stupid paranoid head couldn't avoid the thought, but why worry? Everything was going fine.

I don't know what caused it, if you ripped it out, if my body rejected it, or if it just wasn't the right time; maybe all these things together, in the end it takes two.

And so there I was, looking at this unborn being, staring back at me with your eyes, finally ending the dying life we put on it from the first moment.
The organs and the limbs all at the right place: I could see what they could have been, if they hadn't been so weak. It looked like that undeveloped Polaroid I took of you that still lies at the bottom of the drawer: I know what it is, but no one else can see it.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to let it go, I couldn't throw the remains away, not yet.
I put them in a shoebox, under my bed. I'll have a beer, sleep on it, tomorrow I'll see.
I have to get used to the emptiness first, I have to untangle myself from around your fingers, get some paracetamol for this ******* headache.
Martina Jan 2019
On our first date,
We walked around your town.
You told me that you would have held my hand,
if yours weren't busy.
Eventually you would have held it countless times
and as we walked around your town
with our fingers intertwined
I always looked at the shop windows.
Not because I was interested in what was exposed:
I looked at us.
I looked at how good we looked together.
I saw glimpses of the beauty you often attributed me,
the one I've always denied.

Now that I walk around my town, alone, I understand.
You were my beauty.
You were the most stunning feature of my smile.
Your hand, wrapped around mine, was the warmest glove.

I look at the shopping windows, palms stuck in my pocket.
You're not here anymore  to complain about my cold touch,
Your blue eyes can't pierce my mind from where you are.

Staring at your face while you slept, heavy on my chest,
is my favourite memory.
Minutes passed by as I counted your eyelashes
and every single hair of your beard.
I looked at the straight line of your little nose
as it turned into your beautiful lips,
slightly opened as you snored softly.
I loved every part of you,
even your eczema.

We said it wouldn't be easy,
to love each other from different parts of the world.
It is hard indeed,
It's like running with one leg.
But as long as I know I'll walk around your town again, someday,
I can take it.
Martina Jun 2018
Look how willing I am.
Willing as the body, because my spirit is willing.
Look how I can do it all on my own,
How I get up on my own legs.
Yes, I am: I am willing.
I start believing it myself, finally.
I am so willing that I forget about my joy in front of yours,
That I can bear, bear, bear
An empty existence if yours is full.
I am so willing that I've started smoking,
So willing that you didn't notice my inner scream
While I was smiling in my yellow blazer at the party,
Lying, pretending, playing the part of the old lover
Who forgets about the past.
Yes, I am willing.
But what have I won by being willing?
Dignity? Honour?
Dignity, honour, they don't warm my cheeks in red,
They can't get inside my eyes.
I wish I were weak,
Give up and be instinctive and selfish,
Go back and never, never, never let you go.
I stole you with shaking hands,
I returned you with tears in my eyes,
The head towards what was right and a heart in chains.
And I know you were the happiest when you got back home.

— The End —