NikylaMaria
I make things out of being alive.
Author · Poet · Speaker · Creator · Human
I have never been particularly interested in becoming one thing.
I want the whole human experience.
The sacred and the filthy. Love and rage. Sex and motherhood. History, grief, politics, bodies, gods, books, dirt, beauty, laughter, and the strange little things that make being alive worth the trouble.
Sometimes it becomes a novel. Sometimes a poem on the bathroom wall at 2am. Sometimes a room full of people remembering something they thought they’d lost.
Sometimes I don’t know what it’s becoming yet.
I’ve changed my mind before. I plan to do it again.
Eventually, it all bleeds ink.
“I make it beautiful. I make it digestible. I make it poetry,”from digestible. · hear the whole poem at Poetry with a Pulse →
The room
Show me a list instead
- The manuscript under its stones: Enter Eden
- The pink chair: Who is she?
- Poems pinned to the wall: , ,
- The promise taped to the wall: The Sanctuary (not open yet)
- Written straight on the walls: 3:14am; i am the sanctuary; the plumbing sign; the teacup; the magnificent monster
From the wall
The oil in the skillet
doesn't ask the flame
for a gentle heat.
It spits,
it pops,
it blackens the edge
of the iron
without a single word of regret.
I am done standing
at the sink
trying to rinse away
the dark seasoning
of a long, hot life.
Let the pan stay seasoned.
Let the kitchen smell
of what actually happened.
From the wall
there are fingerprints
fading from my thigh
little violet moons
going yellow
at the edges
i examine them
while brushing my teeth
like evidence
from a crime
i enthusiastically
helped commit
the woman in the mirror
looks pleased
slightly feral
late for work
apparently transcendence
still has emails
From the wall
a very anxious little creature
i think people mistake me for someone unafraid of fire.
which.
no.
absolutely not.
i am terrified of it.
i read warning labels. i touch the stove twice before bed. i replay conversations from three years ago and discover exciting new ways i could have embarrassed myself. i prepare for catastrophes that have not happened and may never happen. i have built entire civilizations out of contingency plans.
i am, at my core, a very anxious little creature.
just one with a remarkable willingness to walk directly into the thing that scares her.
“The same place the light pours in is the place the knife enters.”from digestible. · hear the whole poem at Poetry with a Pulse →
Worlds
Every world I build starts in the same dirt.
World I
The Frequencies of Eden
There was only dirt. Until there wasn’t. Remembering is rebellion.
Enter The Frequencies of Eden →
Opens frequenciesofeden.com (Book I, for now)
World III
Inner Child Sanctuary
For the child who learned the rules too early. Come make a mess.
Coming soon.
Site not live yet
Also on the shelf
no altar, no polished prayer, just a feral creature resting her cheek on home.
stopped pretending to be light and let the ground take my wild, tired skin.
my skin is wider than the cage they built for the girl i was
laying flat on the earth until my heart remembers how to beat without permission
“collapsing inward, skin wrinkling, light dimming, drifting toward the earth.”from digestible. · hear the whole poem at Poetry with a Pulse →
this is why i am here.
Being alive is a responsibility.
We inherited this world, but it is ours now. We are alive now. That means the work belongs to us: to notice, to remember, to protect each other when it costs us something, and to build whatever comes next with our own hands.
What I believe →The Human Ledger: where we’re putting our hands →
“as if I am cursed with aliveness, as if some ancient thing inside my chest refuses extinction,”from digestible. · hear the whole poem at Poetry with a Pulse →
The Record
- Oct 2026I Have to Let Her Be Seen
- Sep 2026Open the Fucking Door: On Female Emotion, Silence, and the Illusion of Emotional Control
- Sep 2026dirty feet, open heart, unfinished work
- Aug 2026all that muscle going quiet.
- Jul 2026Every Firework Hides a Basement
The latest Substack pieces, listed by hand for now. When your writing lives here too, this becomes the live list.
Speaking & retreats
Invite Nikyla to speak, or to hold the room for your retreat.
“life appears in the doorway wearing a different mask, and I think, oh, there you are. Let’s get into trouble.”from digestible. · hear the whole poem at Poetry with a Pulse →
Come closer.
Essays, poems, strange thoughts, new worlds, and occasional evidence that I’m still alive.
Listen: Embodied Divinity · Watch: YouTube
