life
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the soft brown chair by the window, overlooking Fulton Street, holds me tonight.I come here most weeks for therapy, and for a little while, the world outside feels far away, almost like the air in here belongs only to me. my hands won’t stay still. my thoughts circle around themselves, heavy and jagged.depression and addiction…
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lately I’ve been spending less time at the memory center. therapy has taken more of my days, and though I know I need it, I still miss being there. I miss the way presence feels in that place: the heartbeats I catch in the quiet of their eyes, the warmth that comes through a hand…
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when summer comes to an end, it can feel to me like the world is ending, too. I know the other seasons have their beauty and their possibilities. but the earlier sunsets, the days getting shorter and darker: that’s always been a trouble trigger for me. it’s when the fear of relapsing, getting sick and…
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sometimes I wonder where love will find me. in a city this vast, how do two lives ever touch? it’s endless: faces, voices, people brushing past without knowing. and still, I keep hoping for one pair of eyes to finally meet mine and stay. maybe on the Q train at dusk, or in the slow…
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I ride my bike just about everywhere. the subway in the summer feels like a test I don’t need to take, and honestly, it adds up. so I ride. from lower Manhattan back to Flatbush, it’s about an hour. twelve miles, give or take. just me and the street and the city pouring past. those…
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I live with a dual diagnosis: depression and substance use disorder. that’s the name for it. but what it feels like is living on a hinge: leaning toward one world, pulled by the other. one world is made of steady hands and gentle hearts. the soft echo of my mother’s voice from another room. abuela’s…
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I’ve never been on a plane. I have never left New York City. but I’m always imagining what it’s like up there, to be on your way somewhere new. often I think the sky is trying to tell me something: about where I could go, or what might be waiting if I did. sometimes I…
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waiting rooms have a strange gravity to them. this one knew more of me than I meant to share. maybe it lands somewhere close to you. waitINgRooM waiting for someone to call my name is an anxiety machine/music in my headphones’ the only thing keeping me slow/sitting on forms, back to the wall,/TV screen goes…
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I don’t live in the safest part of town. my neighborhood is one of those zip codes that lead the city in serious crimes. people here often feel hemmed in by violence, always scanning for a way out. and I get it. just yesterday, in the shadow of the elevated train tracks, I saw a…
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sometimes people ask me what my songs are about. I usually say something vague —the city, life stuff, you know? — because the real answer feels too tangled to unwrap in small talk. the truth is, they’re personal. not metaphorical or abstract. they’re about Brooklyn. about skateboarding past street corners where dealers post up. about…
cookie nieves 