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Sitting on my stone
In observance of time
Of feelings
Staring at glimpses of souls
Across the highway
On rooftops
Planning futures
Planning endings
A lot can happen in the span of a lunch break
Your soul keeps me company here
Listening to music
Through my oversized headphones
Searching for signs of you
All I get are feelings
But I need something tangible
Something I can hold onto
For longer than a fleeting glimpse
Before I remember you’re gone
Maybe that’s you
but I wish you’d hang
Just a little bit longer
Madelynn Nieves Sep 2023
Some days I ache for you, It’s a feeling beyond simply missing your presence in my life, but the way my heart would race, just knowing you would be around.

I know what happens if I cross this line, the cost  and the consequences, I’ve seen them first hand.

All those times I fell for you against better judgement, magnetized by your siren call, only to find myself sinking in the depths with no light to lead me back to the surface.

Unsure how I still find you alluring, knowing madness always ensues, the moment I feel the steady calm of a life worth living, I get the urge to feel the chaos envelop me.

Folding into a fire disguising itself as freedom from the mundane.

I have everything, more then I could have ever dreamed...

Would I give it all up just to taste you again?
Madelynn Nieves Jul 2023
They said these moments were fleeting.

The nights that seemed endless are already in the rear view. Heavy lids and sandbag limbs we made it through the days on fumes of caffeine and never ending love for you.

Lately, the middle of the night wake up calls have grown less frequent and I don’t mind them as much anymore, even in the haze of my exhaustion, candle burning at all ends, I relish the moments your tiny hands search my face for comfort, tugging at my hair like your favorite blanket as you slip back into the deepest sleep.

Mumbling incoherently until your sweet voice becomes steady breathing and you snuggle into me.

I know that someday I won’t be able to hold you like this anymore, I hope that you’ll still need me, but the reasons won’t be as simple, and my exhaustion will come from worry about a million other things you need and won’t voice.

That is the future, and I will handle it when it comes, but for now, I will absorb every second of this vulnerable nighttime ritual and try not to get frustrated by my lack of sleep and ever changing routine that is on your schedule.

I will capture every second I can on photo and video so that every so often, when I am ready to break, I can go back and reflect on how quickly this sand is passing through the glass, breathe deep and just enjoy this time with you.
Madelynn Nieves Aug 2019
Limbs pinned straight
Like a marionette
Still without hinges
Attempting to cross the room
The chemicals in my brain
Have caused a sudden paralysis
And a silence from deep within
Imagining the end in various stages
The dive and the impact
Of adventures from the highest standpipe
Unable to pass over the bridge
Without the fantasies triggered
By the signs meant to be helpful
Reach out to those
Grasping for their final moments
In a half assed attempt to stretch
Our mental health budget
Numbers are given to call
In our most desperate seconds
As if we would dial
Or cry out for help
Determined to crush
The voices commanding
To take life in our hands
And extinguish it
To ease the pain of the every day
The twisted interpretations
Of words meant to comfort
Nothing is as it seems
We are lost in the murk dullness
Of being unable to feel
Anything but this
Madelynn Nieves Aug 2019
?
Watching your mind work is enough,
Seeing you stop and stare in wonder as we gallivant through the city, makes me want to jump out of my skin with admiration for you.

Some mornings I wake up to the smell of coffee and the sight of you reading in the sunlight and I know I’ve truly made it in life, this is my destination, or at least the beginning of my road there.

I’ve noticed I’ve begun sounding like a greeting card lately and maybe that’s what you do to me, but I wouldn’t trade a single second with you, not even for a million epic pieces of writing.

You just make me feel light, like I’m floating, even though I’ve stopped caring about how much I weigh. Don’t laugh. You know it’s true.

The point is, I’ve never known a love like this before, but I wonder, why is it that when life hands me pie instead of lemons, I all of a sudden can’t write anymore?
Madelynn Nieves Feb 2019
24 hours had passed and I was in a hole, the darkness had consumed me and I couldn’t dispel it, what was going on? I had all of the reasons in life to be happy but the flashes were still coming by the minute, as I drove home that night, I imagined crashing, diving headlong off of the Ben Franklin, nothing to stop me but the thick unforgivable steel, and the thoughts of those I would lose in the process.
I made it home safely. Against a plight of thoughts that were tempting me otherwise. Into bed I go. Feeling like that was the only place I’d be safe. No sharps around. Nothing to harm me. I convince myself to stay steady and distract my brain. It’s time to fill my body with the cure, a hand full of pills and the coldest iced tea. They’re prescribed so what harm could they do. I’ll drift off to sleep and start a new day, filled with sunshine and the voice of my love, the fix I needed to climb out of this tunnel.
But the pills, they’ve turned on me, I feel my body start to shake and the numbness approach my lips, I can’t reach my slumber. And if I continue laying here, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me with the thoughts running rampant in my brain that night. So I decide to move, into the closest haven I can find myself while staying relaxed, a hot bath, not the lukewarm after thought, the kind that stings your skin and makes you feel alive.
I enter with an ahhh of immediate comfort, feeling the heat overtake me, realizing this is exactly what I needed to escape. But I’ve gone too far. The chemicals have overtaken me finally and I feel as if I’m drowning in this 2ft pool, deciding to escape as the world starts to turn, I’ve lost my grip on reality and nothing seems tangible, not even my feet on the floor, I go down the first time, feeling my bones crunch on the imitation wood, and I’m gone, everything is black and I wake up sweating, unable to stand,  spinning out of control.
I find myself in an army crawl trying to get back to the sanctuary of my bed. Imagining how silly it was to be contemplating an end just hours before when now I am literally praying for a way to hear the sweet voice of my heart in the nighttime. In the distance I see the purple sheets, I am almost there, falling repeatedly with my head against the tattered carpet. Wishing I had played my cards differently. Wishing I had remained stationary, playing solitaire in my mind until I had met Hypnos.
Madelynn Nieves Jan 2019
It was decided
Before we arrived
Shirts off
As we cross the threshold
Our mouths mashing
Our bodies crashing
Tripping on words
And each other’s shoes
Stumbling onto the floor
Rug burn and no regrets
working out
we’re finally working out
On the same page
For each and every sentence
Reading my body
Studying every footnote
Whispering meaning
Between the lines of me
Creating a new structure
Where there was none before
Using your hands
To build me up
As I feel my fingers etch
Works of art
Onto the surface of your skin
What we create here
Will go down in history
As the single greatest moment
Crossing every form of expression
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