words

regeneration through isolation absolute,
great holes in the sky bled sunshine down
on the streets and in your eyes until
you could see nothing but the breath of god.

they fled from meaning like sin from priests,
what some call cowardice we knew to be power
and we cradled it in our arms like a newborn
with great care and slight apprehension.

have mercy, they cried, have mercy on us all,
and you knew when we were the only ones left to pray
that still our chances of being heard were thin,
we who bore the burden of seeing the last days
of the earth come slowly to an end.

we lumbered through the dead cities and
listened to the lonely streets as they stretched
up at our feet in fear we may again retreat,
each step a kiss goodbye to the memory of
that place, the people and the sounds and the
ghosts of those which came before.

we swam the rim of the world and the way
and beckoned the stars to take us home,
but in the end we could not die, and we had
that power, and still we chose to live alone
among the fading waters and the falling trees,
free of philosophy that crumbled when the
sun refused to climb back up into the clouds,
free to live forever in the endless shade.

-S.C. Martinez

out in the cold, bearing the slight sting
on my skin, the only light from a street lamp
filtering dimly in through a world of leaves
and from my cigarette that burns slow and steady
like life inching forward, an ember separating
itself from the source and twisting upward
before burning out completely and utterly
in the surrounding darkness of the earth.

it is a part of me, an extra appendage
between stone fingers, a distress signal that
burns in tune with hollow souls,
the only way i can kill oneself
without shame or guilt distorting the act.

it consumes me, and as these words
it has become a quiet cry to those around me,
and likewise resonates with a deep truth
that echoes outward from my heart
though none can bear the frequency.

i am failing with each breath,
a shallow reflection of the child i was once
and of the man i wished to be,
both now fading from view as i stretch
further from enlightenment.

the news trumpets endlessly throughout
my dusty room, driving home with force
every sad thought playing in my head,
eating away at my sense of compassion
and leaving me with an emptiness profound
and deep, measured only by the smoke
from my breaths.

cut from photographs, i have become a saint
of mediocrity and isolation, autonomous
and fascistic with regard to myself,
waving chimneys in the night and leaving
only a thin residue of myself
against the memories of those i’ve loved.

-S.C. Martinez

the world is watching and hearing your labored breath,
hollow sounds in the night that pull your soul apart
and cause your bones to tremble, the belief that out
in the dark there are things you cannot defend yourself
from, cannot escape, cannot outrun, cannot understand.

in a momentary lapse of logic comes the flash of fear
that grips your chest and sends reason from out your lungs,
the despair in knowing you are not alone, in being
vulnerable to the will of shadows with teeth and claws
with viscous grins and able stares and gnarled fingers.

the eyes in the back of your head relay terror and shock,
a glimpse of the beast no prayer will rebuke nor will
sacrifice appease, for god in creating man did not supply
the proper armor to defend such mortal flesh from that
which penetrates the heart and the thread of sanity alike.

no book or candle will protect you from the vesicant,
you will linger in shadows like a leper filled with shame,
distant and ever vindictive not towards the creature
that has made you this way, but against the agents
of your own recourse that failed to keep you safe.

-S.C. Martinez

avoiding eye contact becomes priority above all,
at no cost shall we stray from this principle
as ancient as time itself.
the space between us clouded with thick plumes of smoke
like the aftermath of some great tragedy,
the silence unmolested save by the hollow voices
of dead heroes lamenting their fates to the wind.

the ghosts of our pasts hang about like vapor trails
refusing to die, suffocating the air with a toxicity
known only to the species of our calling, profound
in its simplicity yet overwhelmingly intricate,
vines of self-deprecation that choke the life
from our sense of stability, our will to breathe,
our belief in a higher power and a purpose to existence.

still no acknowledgement, our hearts vacant and depraved,
lips that burn with so many unspoken words.
much is lost in this stalemate between reason and feeling,
time the ultimate cost of our abstract communication,
for the heart may bear witness to such downfall and recover,
but the hours cannot turn back and heal the memory.

we burn in these moments from fires once started
can never be controlled, even through the realization
that every passing moment brings us closer to the end,
we refuse to let those flames die, and the silence
we create destroys far more than we may ever truly know,
still we avoid each others gaze and fill the night with smoke.

-S.C. Martinez

i found many things i thought were lost
but none that i was looking for.
yellow slips of paper with my thoughts from long ago
now strewn about with other trash in a clear plastic bag,
bills and letters,
numbers handwritten whose meaning now lost,
an empty box of condoms, a valentine,
still not what i was looking for.

my search spilled out across the room
into the closet, into boxes long dead,
treasure chests, time capsules,
my hands once again touching these things
that meant so much to me before
yet now exist only when they are before me.

notebooks, many pages of words that
once held so much promise,
now bitter disappointments
and reminders of what may have been.

still none of these things,
though good for passive nostalgia,
were what i had set out to find,
this holy grail of lost import,
this magistrate of broken memory,
this everything
i will never find.

-S.C. Martinez

as the years drag forward
a distinctive bitter taste
develops in the back of the throat
much like the taste of ash
or the stale aftermath of spirit and smoke,
and not for no reason,
there is just plenty to be sad about.

every morning in the winter,
it’s a little colder
and in the summer,
a little warmer
and in the fall,
a touch more apathetic
and spring no longer registers.

loved ones die or move on
and leave you just as puzzled
as the day you were born.

women walk away without looking back
and friends no longer care to hear
the things that make life
so utterly unbearable,
the things that need
so desperately to be said aloud,
even stray creatures look away, unamused
by the tragic fall of will and charisma.

everything you write smears
into meaningless shapes and lines,
and everyone you’ve ever known
continues to move away from your center of the universe,
the big bang in your head propelling outward
the force of gravity in your heart.

-S.C. Martinez

too beautiful for us,
never meant for us,
the way it is,
the way it will always be–
we can look,
but never more.

they dance before our eyes
and caress what we cannot have,
such a tease for empty hearts
staring on and on,
ashamed of what we have become.

safe in here, though so alone,
still they move for us,
the curves of their figure
rolling and rolling,
waves of perfection
we know nothing of.

reach out and lose a hand
but no amount of ink
can catch their attention
long enough to matter.

they’ll never know
we cut through life
dreaming of the night,
the night they will be ours
and we can throw them away at last.

-S.C. Martinez

she is draped in white,
promising the renaissance
and if i grasp her hand
and close my eyes
she’ll take me there with open heart,
away from the broken earth
and its broken homes.

she spins just like a music box,
a clock encased in glass
smiling at the promise she gives
while all the bones around us
turn to ash and dust,
we are safe in here.

i see a break in the glass
and through her tender lies
i see a black horse
who i know beyond knowing
will search for me for all eternity
and yet it is better to ride with it
than to stay inside with her.

-S.C. Martinez

the wells have been dried up for some time now
and nothing looks or feels the same anymore,
nothing gets us out of bed with passion
or inspires some semblance of hope,
meanwhile the bell summons the faithful to the vespers
while the rest of us sit on cracked concrete slabs
waiting for the sun to burn out,
waiting for the universe to start moving inward,
waiting for that stray bullet with our name written on it
to shatter lungs quicker than fear.

the smell of restlessness chokes the air
as we rap our knuckles without rhythm,
not knowing where it all went,
why those holes no longer look back at us,
still we’re unsure what to keep and what to spit out,
what words mean and what they don’t.

the dirt beneath our heels no longer a memory
but an abstraction of delusion,
something from another day we stayed at home
smashing the seconds between eyelids heavy with indifference
and those rays keep shining down with no indication of fatigue,
we stretch out in the shadows and breathe in the fumes
trying to recall what it was before it all went dry.

-S.C. Martinez

the black bird haunts me again,
those dark eyes that know it,
that breathe it,
dreams of what’s to come,
losing sensation for all others
in this straightjacket fashion.

many tongues speaking many lies,
those eyes grow wide with sight
as planes cut through the sky
and apathetic hands reach out
finding no one there,
gently gripping the night.

accused of all but faith
she hides behind white curtains
and lets the sunlight in
an inch at a time,
cascading down her skin,
the perfect topography
of pale peaks and valleys
that drive my thoughts to madness
while i forsake all others
for this lust i have in me.

not a wish but a need
wrapped in pretty paper
discarded on the floor
beside the mattress
with the other casualties
of this endless crusade
to right what has been wrong for so long.

and at the heart of the monster
lies a ruin of genealogy
burned out ages past
when the fires could still be lit,
now littered with empty promises,
dark thoughts,
that pretty wrapping paper
and countless other bits of trash.

-S.C. Martinez