I have a BFA in Creative Writing from Florida State University.
I have been an active writer for years.
I have work published in The Thin Blue Line Magazine and Stone's Throw Magazine.

Contact: byMadelynnGraham@gmail.com

“You’re going to register for the notification email so you can know every time the price goes down for a flight to Reno, NV or Sacramento, CA,” they said.   Should I fly into Reno or Sacramento?  Which is farther?  I know nothing about your coordinates these days, since you won’t correspond.  You won’t answer my letters, e-mails, calls.  For the first time in years you don’t exist to me.  You always lived on, despite the distance, through virtual interaction and intoxicated dreams I never wanted to wake up from.  Do you remember?  Why every one of your girlfriends has been jealous of me?  DO YOU REMEMBER?  Why no matter how treacherous my sin you still replied to me?  And now you’re caught up in that last year of teenage love trying to make something out of fleeting, scattered feelings, strong enough to lay a foundation not strong enough to host the home we all wish to erect.   If only we could rest in each other’s arms and live a stable life of trucking on speed and artificial dopamine and pushing forward, toward an unclear motive tainted by infidelity, pockmarked with breaches of trust, so faded now I can only lust for it instead of relying on my unravelling safety net.

“You’re going to register for the notification email so you can know every time the price goes down for a flight to Reno, NV or Sacramento, CA,” they said.  

Should I fly into Reno or Sacramento?  Which is farther?  I know nothing about your coordinates these days, since you won’t correspond.  You won’t answer my letters, e-mails, calls.  For the first time in years you don’t exist to me.  You always lived on, despite the distance, through virtual interaction and intoxicated dreams I never wanted to wake up from.  Do you remember?  Why every one of your girlfriends has been jealous of me?  DO YOU REMEMBER?  Why no matter how treacherous my sin you still replied to me?  And now you’re caught up in that last year of teenage love trying to make something out of fleeting, scattered feelings, strong enough to lay a foundation not strong enough to host the home we all wish to erect.  

If only we could rest in each other’s arms and live a stable life of trucking on speed and artificial dopamine and pushing forward, toward an unclear motive tainted by infidelity, pockmarked with breaches of trust, so faded now I can only lust for it instead of relying on my unravelling safety net.

All my beautiful lovely safe world blew itself up here with a great gust of high explosive love.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night. (via madeofglass-)

Death like a leaky pipe creeps virally across the autumn/winter cusp, an eerie reminder of the fragility of every entity.  From man-made waterworks to the more natural essence of life, anything could crumble and dissipate.  Worldly toxins inject into culture as a stimulant of the mind or a recreational way to pass the time.  Stricken are the youth, once hooked by the deepest sinking lines.  Sunken are the youth, too bored to get by, too miserably discontent to just accept the bevy of opportunities they’ve been gifted with.  Too misguided and pretentious to merely grab hold of the helping hand they’ve been born with, like a comic balloon hovering above them since infancy.  A gracious, glowing hand - ready - to pull them through all the troubles of the American youth: from detention at their air-conditioned educational facilities to tampering in their mother’s medicine cabinets.  The disgruntling youth rejects the helping hand, be it attached to a parent, teacher, neighbor, no!  No hand is skilled enough to quell the eternal question: “How am I going to entertain myself tonight?”  As if the plethora of media today can’t pleasure the mind too screen-shock from a life of iToys, no, they still turn to the never passe intoxicants to pass the day away.  Tortured youth, I will not lecture you as your ears are ringing with phantom noises anyway.  I only ask, that while you breathe, you do something worthy of engraving as your epitaph.  

Death like a leaky pipe creeps virally across the autumn/winter cusp, an eerie reminder of the fragility of every entity.  From man-made waterworks to the more natural essence of life, anything could crumble and dissipate.  Worldly toxins inject into culture as a stimulant of the mind or a recreational way to pass the time.  Stricken are the youth, once hooked by the deepest sinking lines.  Sunken are the youth, too bored to get by, too miserably discontent to just accept the bevy of opportunities they’ve been gifted with.  Too misguided and pretentious to merely grab hold of the helping hand they’ve been born with, like a comic balloon hovering above them since infancy.  A gracious, glowing hand - ready - to pull them through all the troubles of the American youth: from detention at their air-conditioned educational facilities to tampering in their mother’s medicine cabinets.  The disgruntling youth rejects the helping hand, be it attached to a parent, teacher, neighbor, no!  No hand is skilled enough to quell the eternal question: “How am I going to entertain myself tonight?”  As if the plethora of media today can’t pleasure the mind too screen-shock from a life of iToys, no, they still turn to the never passe intoxicants to pass the day away.  Tortured youth, I will not lecture you as your ears are ringing with phantom noises anyway.  I only ask, that while you breathe, you do something worthy of engraving as your epitaph.  

Chilling chilling chilling bones construct naught but a frozen frame destroyed by opinionated forces. No central mobilized mainframe just a malleable mass unintentionally stretched and shoved in every direction affected. No choice, no free will, just inflicted instructions toward mediocrity: I vote no. I vote yes to freedom no to this sad excuse for a fulfilling life. I vote yes to opportunity no to obstacle. Are you listening out there? Will you tally the vote and see who indeed is in the lead, the utmost lead, the tall tier on the winners’ podium; how can i be you? Who will hang the gold medal around this least deserving neck? Not you nor them nor anyone else!  I keep my own score for my own competition and the winner can only be one. First place has one reserved seat for the single most valuable player, the most seasoned. veteran the most fighting fighter. Here I stand world with your loose earth beneath my feet. Minor earthquakes major heartbreaks major headaches as in I don’t want to care enough to hurt so much but the pain seeks deep into the bones through the marrow into the intangible tissue that makes one’s heart soul when they see certain things and their intestines tangle at the collaboration of certain words.  You think you know so much and I did too, and its more embarrassing to confess than to advise that you unclench unfaithful fists and wander until the lust recedes to faint remorse of how you wished you’d loved him consistently and not interrupted such pure adoration with infectious flings.

Chilling chilling chilling bones construct naught but a frozen frame destroyed by opinionated forces. No central mobilized mainframe just a malleable mass unintentionally stretched and shoved in every direction affected. No choice, no free will, just inflicted instructions toward mediocrity: I vote no. I vote yes to freedom no to this sad excuse for a fulfilling life. I vote yes to opportunity no to obstacle. Are you listening out there? Will you tally the vote and see who indeed is in the lead, the utmost lead, the tall tier on the winners’ podium; how can i be you? Who will hang the gold medal around this least deserving neck? Not you nor them nor anyone else!  I keep my own score for my own competition and the winner can only be one. First place has one reserved seat for the single most valuable player, the most seasoned. veteran the most fighting fighter. Here I stand world with your loose earth beneath my feet. Minor earthquakes major heartbreaks major headaches as in I don’t want to care enough to hurt so much but the pain seeks deep into the bones through the marrow into the intangible tissue that makes one’s heart soul when they see certain things and their intestines tangle at the collaboration of certain words.  You think you know so much and I did too, and its more embarrassing to confess than to advise that you unclench unfaithful fists and wander until the lust recedes to faint remorse of how you wished you’d loved him consistently and not interrupted such pure adoration with infectious flings.

Home is where the heart isn’t.  Home is the elusive dream we cling to in a foreign place.  When we are not there we long to return when we are we yearn to escape.  We spend our lives searching for home.  The fence, the yard, four comforting walls.  The American dream, the unachievable.  Restless is the roamer stir-crazy is the homebody in a cabinet of fever.  I’ve been looking for my home since the house on Central Park, where my grandfather poured the cement and we squished our hands in the slow to congeal mass.  Two transient decades: the suburban house with the white stucco walls, dilapidated dormitories, a roof with a view.  “You are not welcome here.”  I don’t feel welcome here.              You were my home once when we talked about what to hang on the walls and which sheets to stretch across our bed.  Cold feet and my own fatal flaws drove you out and I am homeless once again.             Where do you go when you’re at the end of your rope but the road sprawls ahead?  I squint to see the horizon, maybe a safe haven in the distance.  Dust and debris cloud my view.  When was the fire, I saw no flames just the post-wreckage of charred promises and burnt hope.  I run now, maybe my destination will materialize as my internal odometer spins wild.             The mile marker never changes.  The loneliness spreads malignant aches through my body.  My listless heart pumps only as necessary to prolong this never ending quest.             Even the freshest rays of the sunrise shed no light on my home, not even the shadow of the sunset casts upon a beacon.  The mile marker never changes; the uphill trek has yet to descend.  My feet have walked through my shoes.             Home is the recipient of the soldier’s letter, home is the next departing flight, home is the old house where your grandfather died that you can only drive past since your grandmother moved out.  Home is the treasure we lust for so hard to never ever find.  

Home is where the heart isn’t.  Home is the elusive dream we cling to in a foreign place.  When we are not there we long to return when we are we yearn to escape.  We spend our lives searching for home.  The fence, the yard, four comforting walls.  The American dream, the unachievable.  Restless is the roamer stir-crazy is the homebody in a cabinet of fever.  I’ve been looking for my home since the house on Central Park, where my grandfather poured the cement and we squished our hands in the slow to congeal mass.  Two transient decades: the suburban house with the white stucco walls, dilapidated dormitories, a roof with a view.  “You are not welcome here.”  I don’t feel welcome here. 

            You were my home once when we talked about what to hang on the walls and which sheets to stretch across our bed.  Cold feet and my own fatal flaws drove you out and I am homeless once again.

            Where do you go when you’re at the end of your rope but the road sprawls ahead?  I squint to see the horizon, maybe a safe haven in the distance.  Dust and debris cloud my view.  When was the fire, I saw no flames just the post-wreckage of charred promises and burnt hope.  I run now, maybe my destination will materialize as my internal odometer spins wild.

            The mile marker never changes.  The loneliness spreads malignant aches through my body.  My listless heart pumps only as necessary to prolong this never ending quest.

            Even the freshest rays of the sunrise shed no light on my home, not even the shadow of the sunset casts upon a beacon.  The mile marker never changes; the uphill trek has yet to descend.  My feet have walked through my shoes.

            Home is the recipient of the soldier’s letter, home is the next departing flight, home is the old house where your grandfather died that you can only drive past since your grandmother moved out.  Home is the treasure we lust for so hard to never ever find.  

Every now and then I’ll run into really good writers who have nothing to say. And at that point you want to say, ‘Well, okay. Stop writing and go and get a job somewhere. Go around the world. Go do stuff. Go and get your heart broken and then come back and write some more.’

— Neil Gaiman, Advice for Aspiring Writers (via quotare)

(via quotare)

You really know how to make a girl feel special, special like rotting fish or wilted flowers.  You really know how to make a girl feel loved.  Loved like the three-legged feral cat by the train track who you leave food when you remember.  What you really know how to do, is how to make a girl feel deflated and downtrodden, like every last sweet fiber of my being has been extracted and all that’s left is the skeletal core, housing my dying organs.  I’ve breathed, sweat, and excreted all the goodness I was born with, all for you.  You’ve bled me empty.  Now I lay a corpse of our love, baking in the flames of my own Hell.  And where are you? You won’t answer if I call, not even if I sing with full lungs “Where for art thou?”  So I fill my body with other things now.  A stomach full of liquor and lungs full of smoke.  With poison warm like your love, loaded like the gun I wished for last night on the single star amidst the city lights.  You said you hated me that night, I hate me too, what does that mean to you? That I’m copping out, that I’m playing all the cards up my sleeve, that I’m braying like a dying animal for an unattainable union that’s disintegrating like acid-doused skin.  The hardened layers peel away like unruly scaffolding, giving up their support without a care for the inevitable collapse.  I crumble, a hollow body.  My bones bend, my skin sags around the restructured frame, my self medication seeps from the flesh wounds.   If only I had the courage to walk across the train tracks, like the wild cats that scamper back and forth.  But when I hear the whistle I will not run, I will lay with the rusty track tracing my spine and the wildflowers tickling my hands and feet.  When the whistle blows I will not run, I’ll let the train slice me like a high speed butcher and spew whatever’s left inside in every direction.  No need to gag and bound me, your lingering words hold me still.

You really know how to make a girl feel special, special like rotting fish or wilted flowers.  You really know how to make a girl feel loved.  Loved like the three-legged feral cat by the train track who you leave food when you remember.  What you really know how to do, is how to make a girl feel deflated and downtrodden, like every last sweet fiber of my being has been extracted and all that’s left is the skeletal core, housing my dying organs.  I’ve breathed, sweat, and excreted all the goodness I was born with, all for you.  You’ve bled me empty.  Now I lay a corpse of our love, baking in the flames of my own Hell.  And where are you?

You won’t answer if I call, not even if I sing with full lungs “Where for art thou?”  So I fill my body with other things now.  A stomach full of liquor and lungs full of smoke.  With poison warm like your love, loaded like the gun I wished for last night on the single star amidst the city lights.  You said you hated me that night, I hate me too, what does that mean to you?

That I’m copping out, that I’m playing all the cards up my sleeve, that I’m braying like a dying animal for an unattainable union that’s disintegrating like acid-doused skin.  The hardened layers peel away like unruly scaffolding, giving up their support without a care for the inevitable collapse.  I crumble, a hollow body.  My bones bend, my skin sags around the restructured frame, my self medication seeps from the flesh wounds.  

If only I had the courage to walk across the train tracks, like the wild cats that scamper back and forth.  But when I hear the whistle I will not run, I will lay with the rusty track tracing my spine and the wildflowers tickling my hands and feet.  When the whistle blows I will not run, I’ll let the train slice me like a high speed butcher and spew whatever’s left inside in every direction.  No need to gag and bound me, your lingering words hold me still.

Towering architectural anomalies, offices piled upon offices, no one wears flip flops.  An asphalt crisscross of coming and going and road construction.  Watch out!  So many people so many phones.  Voices flowing through the invisible cellular net.  Where are you going and where have you been?  Are you gone for good?

Towering architectural anomalies, offices piled upon offices, no one wears flip flops.  An asphalt crisscross of coming and going and road construction.  Watch out!  So many people so many phones.  Voices flowing through the invisible cellular net.  Where are you going and where have you been?  Are you gone for good?

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday