By. Lauren

A throbbing pain,
A moment in which I hear nothing.
A bullet to the head.
A scream to leave me alone.
Doctors say “if a headache lasts more than 24 hours than there is something wrong."
“What about 24/7?” I scream in my brain.
My headache is not a scream for your help;
It is a scream for the God I left years ago to hurry up and **** me.
For as long as I can remember my headache has been there for me.
My headache comes over at the worst of times banging on my door refusing to leave.
My headache is worse than the Jehovah’s Witness banging on my door every Sunday.
My headache is an intruder refusing to leave even after I call the cops.
My headache makes me scream,
So keep away from me.
My headache has taken a hold of me.
My headache makes the lights in my room look like the holy light waiting to blind me.
I know not of the life I had before headache because headache has always been holding my hand.
My headache is a lover who I can not seem to leave no matter how many times I say,
‘I am through”
My headache is the person on the other side of the aisle
Saying,
“I do”
Before I could run away.
So when the doctor gave me the bottle of pills that rattled in the passenger seat of my car all the way home I was shocked to see I was afraid to divorce my lover headache.
Because
My headache loved me.

By. Lauren

It's 3AM where are you?
It's 3AM I called you.
It's 3AM I still love you.
It's 3AM and I just got the call.
It's 3AM why'd you do this?
It's 3AM and you're still dead.
It's 3AM and I miss you.
It's 3 years later and I still cry at 3AM.

By. Lauren

Ice cream.
Melting.
Dripping.
Falling.
Splatting.
Crying.
Creating.
Giving.
Licking.
Swallowing.
Smilin­g.

By. Lauren

Silence,
Silence,
Silence,
Shushing.
Why is it we sigh in relief?
A leap for joy when no words are to be said.
The fading of a pounding sensation in the head.
The souls who most long for it seem to never find it.
Silence,
Silence,
Silence,
I must shush now before my words become poison to someone else's mind.

By. Lauren

I feel like the fattest skeleton to ever break

By. Lauren

I do not want to be depressed.
Mom I am trying.
I can not keep apologizing.
I took the blade to my own skin it was not a demon from god.
I'm just trying.
Mom will you listen!?
I can not apologize.
Mom I do not believe.
Why must you say that I brought this upon myself?
Mom god did not send me a devil.
You can not drown my depression in a sea of Jesus.
Mom I brought this upon myself it is all my own mind.
Mom I can not believe.
Not in a god you claim made me this way.
Mom.
I do not want to be depressed.
I just want to be me.
To be free.
Not free from a demon
But free from me.

By. Lauren

The smell of death has always been a 6th sense to me.
I do not know why but the second something I once held dear to my heart passes on I smell the smell.
A smell that's so nauseating I can hear it.
Hear its rumble.
Hear its beating on the no longer pumping heart.
Hear the smell.
The smell of rotting.
The smell that brings tears to my dull eyes.
The smell I've always seemed to recognize.
The smell of death.
The blunt reminder that they are gone.
Gone forever.
Gone like the smell.
The smell I feel trapped in.
The smell of death.
My 6th sense.

By. Lauren

I have braces, wait I'm sorry.
Did I say braces?
I meant the torture device in which wraps around my teeth like a hungry shark longing for a midnight snack until the point that my teeth feel as if they are about to fall out.
The feeling is like that last front tooth that you lost when you were seven wiggly yet you couldn't let it go.
The torture device feels as if a box of floss  was tied around my teeth getting tighter and tighter and tighter every month to the point that my teeth just want to give in.
It's only been three weeks now but my torture device is just now adapting to getting tighter.
Every single month a different color or as I like to call it a different shade of pain.
Because I have braces.
Braces,
Braces,
Braces.
I miss the days in which I could read my poetry aloud without spitting all the way across the room, because every time I talk I put my hand over my face to wipe the  spit connecting my bottom and top row of teeth away due to embarrassment.
The man I once thought would to be my friend is now the torture of my teeth and gums.
He has made it to the point that have the worst lisp causing me to be at the point that I can't even read.
Because I have braces.
Braces,
Braces,
Braces.
So if you asked me to count the number of brackets I have broken in the course of my three weeks I don't think I would have enough fingers or toes.
If you asked me how many people I have heard complaining about this constant issue I would be absolutely clueless.
Because everywhere I turn I hear
Braces,
Braces,
Braces.
The constant words being spoken "no I can't eat that" "no I'm sorry I can't, I have an orthodontist appointment" "oh my god my bracket just broke" not to mention the most dreadful one of them all "my wire just popped out and the first second you feel like you're going to squirt blood on the the next person that tries to talk to you to the point all you can see is a ****** scene of blood on their body.
Because you have braces.
A torture device  that you have been told you will get off in 2 1/2 years.
But you know far too well that it'll be a long journey.
Because you have braces.
Braces,
Braces,
Braces.
And you will have braces.
Braces,
Braces,
Braces,
For what feels like the rest of eternity.

By. Lauren

Relapse.
Another.
Another.
And yet another.
The place I'm at.
The place where my world spins.
The place where I can't look at food.
The place where I've lost 20 pounds.
The place where my blood is drawn.
The place where the world can see I am sick.
I am living in relapse
After relapse.
It just seems like an endless pit of sick.

By. Lauren

He touched me.
He yelled out to me.
Peacefully walking down the street when he reached out for me.
Making all the motions not seeming to care.
They said it was my fault.
But was I really asking for it?
Skinny jeans and a T-shirt.
Was I really the one to blame?
My hands were trained.
We keep to ourselves in a shameless game.
Why must we be trained?
Countless years in therapy still unable to erase the pain.
His force upon us.
Why must we learn to forget?
The scars are still there yet our eyes must not weep.
The tears shall not commence.
Because I was trained after that day to keep my mouth shut.
"Nothing happened to me" I was taught to say.
I am not an object.
I am just simply afraid to this day.
He touched me and that's all I am here to say.
Just from this day forward, I will keep my mouth shut like I did before.
My tongue is tied like it was taught to before.

By. Lauren

To all the girls I've loved,
My love for you dug into my veins like a shard of glass searching for any resemblance of blood left in me. After you shattered like mirror that I looked into, my heart broke too.
Our love was stronger than words could speak until you took the last bit of my innocence and discarded of me like a plastic bag. To you I was a game just waiting to be won. If only I had wiped the hazy fog from my eyes soon enough to see that you were just the devil taking a hold of me. Boy was I wrong when I discarded the advice of others. They spoke truth. Our love was merrily a puzzle piece in the complex puzzle we call life. Every which turn I take I am faced with the same reality. The blunt truth indeed. Our love was more toxic than all the skull labeled barbells I surrounded myself with.  You were just a chess master waiting to call checkmate on me. If only I had left before we got so far. Our love was a monster under my bed waiting to pull me under and call me crazy. I was crazy. Our love was crazier than the epidemics we see on TV. To all the girls I've loved, there is no need for apology. For our love was far too complex to simplify into one poem.

By. Lauren

Growing up my mother told me to follow my dreams.
Step by step I grew.
From teaching to cardiology, all the dreams I wanted to pursue.
It's just then the day came.
When my clock was coming to a slow.
The ticking about to stop.
And my future here for me to pursue.
My mother told me not to let the world hold me down with their dreams for me.
But when my clock was out and it was time to leave my mother laid some rules.
It was no longer about my happiness.
It was not my future I had to pursue.
It was all her dreams for me.
She told me I must grow old and have a family.
A dream I never had for myself at all.
She told me these words "Lauren you are a career-oriented person, but that is not what you must pursue."
All she wanted for me was a future.
A real one.
But it was not the happy world I had wanted to pursue.
So I had to let her down.
And live the life I had always envisioned.
The one I wanted to pursue.

By. Lauren

Are you okay?
I know we where never close,
But are you okay?
I see the marks on your arms.
I'm afraid you're not okay.
Will you let me get to know you?
Will you let me get close to you?
Will you be okay?
Please say yes.

By. Lauren

I never take the time to put my pen to paper.
It's always thumbs tapping in a rampage to type my feelings out.
My mind storming and swirling.
My lungs compressing.
All trying to keep me going.
To keep me alive.
But it's not working.
Has it ever been working?
My heart never wants to pump its next pint of blood.
My legs never want to take their next steps.
It's always a process I can not get to end.
Just I can't seem to make it work properly either.
So what's the point?
What's my purpose?

By. Lauren

I have so many things to write,
But
I'm afraid to write.
Because,
I'm afraid to feel.
And since
I'm afraid to feel,
I'm afraid to love.
And
I'm stuck with the same situation again.
Because,
I have so many things to write,
But
I'm afraid to write.

By. Lauren

I didn't choose to answer that phone.
They said my name on the other end.
How was I to react from within.
So then I denied the allegations.
Hung up the phone for this was the end.
2 minutes later they called again.
Left a message my ears where unwilling to hear.
They told me news I was shocked to receive.
He had done it again and gotten seized.
I am still quivering.
Trembling from the news.
They asked me to come in but I refused.
Unwilling to accept the reality that she too had been abused.

By. Lauren

I'm feeling kinda sad.
It's been years since I was in this place.
Yet today, you felt the need to entangle me in bed sheets
and clothes too big to be my own.

By. Lauren

My imperfections glisten in your eyes.
I am a slate of marble.
Curved and imperfect.
Except I am still beautiful in the teenage day dream you call life.

By. Lauren

Sooooo I washed my hair last night.
Not because it was gross just because I had the motivation.
I know this whole motivation thing is absurd.
Only doing things when I feel like my body can withstand them.
The audacity of it all.

Sooooo I didn't tie my shoe on the way to lunch.
Not because I didn't want to.
Just because it felt as if I would snap.
One more stretch and the whole system would be out of whack.

Sooooo I did something I didn't need to do.
Washing my hair so I could feel more real.
Using my new found motivation in favor of my future.

On the contrary, I didn't do something I needed to do.
Tying my shoe so I could walk without stumble.
Conserving my energy all for the fall.
Not breaking in the action but breaking from the reaction.

It's crazy what motivation can do to you.

By. Lauren

On that day it's like the bell didn't ring.
No buzz in the hall
Or message to convey.
Only the whisper of voices and echo of tears.
The dreaded news refusing to spread.
The blink of an eye was too much to handle.
The drop of a tear immediately followed.
She was gone.
What could be done?
No bell would change the fact only a ring of emotion would be released.
No buzz of white noise would bring back her laughter.
All that was left was a cathedral of empty lungs.
No air left to breathe.
No more tears to shed or news to spread.
She was gone.
That fact was all that followed.

By. Lauren

That call,
The last straw,
The last day
Of my past.
The change of one day
Can be enough to change a life.
On that day,
My life changed.
On that day
my future was burnt into me.
As she stared into my eyes
My heart seemed to race.
My mind seemed to overflow with the sorrow of past years
The razor never dug deep enough to bleed out.
Finally in the span of one breath. The words I was dreading the most were spoken aloud .
On that day I knew why I was there.
And my life changed.

By. Lauren

From the age of ten I learned to swallow a pill.
A pill to numb the pain.
A pill to make a change.
I listened to the instructions the doctors gave me.
It's only,
day by day I felt more pain.
No more change.
Only an increase in range.
An increase in pain.

By. Lauren

Poetry I miss you
Except
I no longer have the skills to write you.

By. Lauren

The release of a scream was the most awaited part of my day.
An opportunity to release my pain.
No more feelings.
No more emotions.
Just an opportunity to feel normal.
The long awaited break.
The release of built up stress.
A simple scream that would change it all.
Just a scream that made my day normal once more.

By. Lauren

The last gulp of air.
The last chance at life.
The kids of opportunity.
The lack of oxygen to the heart.
The last heart palpitation.
The only chance left.
No more opportunities to be found in the lonesome grave of death

By. Lauren

I feel lost.
No end in sight only a loop.
A marry go round of thoughts.
When will it ever stop?

By. Lauren

Darkness has engulfed the world.
Burning everything I called precious.
Making you cry.
Will it ever end?
The obis is killing me.
I miss the world we use to have.
The one not engulfed in darkness.
But instead shining with light.

By. Lauren

* my voice echos *
I want to tell you a story.
A story that goes like this.
A story where my voice echoes over the bustling room.
A story where I can get real quiet when talking about sensitive topics.
A story that goes like this.
It all begins loud as I tell a violent tale of the girl that was hit last week by her boyfriend.
Then it seems to fade.
My voice fades into a bleak whisper as I tell the tale of two lovers one living with a mask over her face.
A tale of two fates.
Two worlds.
Two people that will never seem to cross paths no matter the story.
I want to tell you a story where I can tell the truth.
A story a lot like this.
A story of vulnerability.
I want to tell you a story.
A story that will help the world see the true me.
I guess I don't want to tell you a story at all.
I just want to tell you the truth.
I want to tell you my truth.
Time to start where it all began.
* my voice fades into a shallow whisper

By. Lauren

You whispered sweet nothings into my ears.
You where a shadow that chased me around.
Did you ever really love me or was it all a hoax?
A chance to get back at me for all the mistakes I made.
So the next time you dare whisper sweet nothings in my ears you'll get a whisper and a punch back.

By. Lauren

Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
This poem sounds like the rest of them.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
Am I repeating myself over and over again?
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
I feel like a leaky faucet of ideas.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
Is there any creativity left in me?
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
My ideas don't flow out like they use to.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
I think I'm done with poetry.

By. Lauren

To all the self harmers I know,
You are loved even on your worst of days.
You will have scars.
Your friends will worry when you show up with red marks on your arms and legs.
Children will ask questions.
Just remember please, it is all because they are worried about you.
To all the ex self harmers I know,
I've been there too.
The days you face become more and more difficult like a heavy weight as you search for a way to cope and breathe freely once more,
But
You will make it out of this.
You are powerful.
Your scars will fade.
To all the the people who have self harmed,
Your stories will never go away.
But your stories will end.
To self harm,
It's time to move on and stop claiming wrists as friends.

By. Lauren

As a cry for attention exits each mouth around me, I begin to dread the day awaiting me.
Each word spoken is another noise I'm forced to deal with.
Despite my dreams I take each step needed to begin my day.
Because, in a world without poetry I dread everything.
The slightest breath causes my mind to race.
A plan of action even forms for my next piece of poetic expression.
Each day poses a new opportunity.
An opportunity to pursue my dream.
An opportunity to be me.
So I take a breath that blocks out all the noise around me.
I pick up the pen
And I pressure my dream in a world
With poetry.

By. Lauren

What is poetry?
A lost art form I can not seem to remember?

By. Lauren

My quiet love wasn't enough for you.
I tried and tried,
But I bet she said the things I wanted to tell you first.
The things I didn't have the guts to say.
Like "I love you".
Love never ends well for a girl like me.
Not when you're shy.
Not when your voice trembles more than you speak.
I thought I warned you!
I told you not to break my heart.
"I'm fragile," I said to you.
Yet you did it anyway.
Made me shatter in fragments impossible to see.
For you I was venerable gave you all the parts of me I was afraid to share.
The parts of me that were not perfect.
The parts I was still revising after my last quiet love story.
But you left me!
You dumped me!
Left me feeling like I had done something wrong!
Our love never meant **** to you.
I told you I was shy yet you discarded of it the same way you dumped me.
I'm sorry I could never say "I love you".
I hope you're happy with her.
Happy with her love.
A love that speaks louder than I could ever.

By. Lauren

When I first looked into your eyes I saw that something was wrong.
I knew that you had a secret that you where keeping from the world.
I could see a tear drop from your glistening brown eyes.
I could see the depth of the ocean that you where keeping hostage.
I could see that you were suffering. Because when I looked into your eyes I saw the girl that I used to be.
I saw a girl that was afraid to tell her parents how she truly felt.
When I looked into your eyes I knew that you were just waiting to tell the world something.
When I looked into your eyes I saw a secret waiting to be told.
Sadly, I also saw that you will grow old And will likely keep the secret from everybody in the world out of fear.
You know I can see your secret don't you?
"Your secret is safe with," me I want to whisper in your ear.
I want to tell you that I know how you feel.
I want to tell you that I will be there for you.
But how do you tell that to somebody who hasn't even told you they're secret?
I know what your secret is because I had  the same secret that you had.
Maybe you don't even have a secret at all.
Maybe your secret isn't even a secret at all.
But when I looked into those brown glistening eyes once more I knew that I was correct.
I knew that you were truly keeping a secret deeper than the one I was.
I knew together we had a big secret that we would have to help each other with.
So when I looked into your brown glistening eyes mine glistened too as if to convey the message "we're in this together, love."

By. Lauren

Living in the Bible belt is like living in hell.
Oh, the irony of it all.
Christ equals heaven that's what I was always told.
But does it really?
Oh does it really?
Really really really?
Does Christ really equal heaven in this hell?
From the age of zero, I was taught a religion that I couldn't understand.
My tiny ears couldn't even understand my own mother's words fully.
Yet, I was taught about a lord I later disowned.
Not to mention the scorching heat of it all.
The words their religious mouths set ablaze every Sunday afternoon.
The toxicity of it all.
Each Sunday afternoon sitting in a pew waiting to be pumped full of a venom I can't allow myself to believe in.
This is hell.
Yet I'm stuck here fighting because I know no better place to call my home.

By. Lauren

Looking at you I can't help but wonder if you've been crying all day.
Your eyes seem to want to fade.
Fade away.
Looking at you I can't help but want to pump the happy back through.
Back through your veins.
Looking at you makes me feel dead.
Your skin looks so grey.
Are you okay?
Looking at you I can't help but want to cry too.
Cry all day.
All because I looked at you.
Looked at you today.

By. Lauren

I feel so bad.
All I ever do is complain to you.
What am I to say to you when all I ever do is complain?
I just want to joke with you but I can't when all I ever do is complain.
I'm in pain.
I want to tell you why but I can't even try.
It's all a predicament I don't want to be in.
And I don't want to be here.
I don't want to be in pain.
I don't want to complain.
I want to be strong for you but how can that be done.
It sounds so plain.
Just be strong Lauren.
Why must you complain?
Did your mother teach you no better?
Did your life fail you that hard?
Lauren why don't you just stop this already?
Stop complaining!

By.
Lauren

Life is a book.
An ever-growing book.
365 new pages a year.
A new page each day to read.
Each page opens a new opportunity.
A chance to change the characters.
A chance to change the scenery.
A chance to change the loop.

The cycle that feels never-ending.
And then it snaps.
And there are no more opportunities left to change the page.

The book feels like it's never going to end until it does.
Until you see yet another person lie down their book to rest.
Then it all hits you.
Whether it be today, tomorrow or many years down the road each of our books will come to a close.

There will be no more opportunities to change our outcome.
No more days to change our page.
No alternate endings to choose from.
It's just a book we have to finish reading.
No giving up midway.

By. Lauren

I love what I do so very much but I don't know if what I do loves me back.
My love for poetry wraps around my heart and squeezes it until it struggles to beat onward.
I love writing poetry.
But does poetry love me writing it?

By. Lauren

They told me make it count,
But how do you do so?
When there's nothing left to count.
No sheep in the field waiting to escape.
Only a barrel of stress no one can erase.
The cry of a student.
Only work to do.
I just need a rescue.
A break from this mess.
A way to unwind.
More sheep to count in my head.
An escape from this stress.
No poems that I need to write.
Just a day in a life where it actually all counts.
A message from god saying it will all be
Okay.

By. Lauren

It's been a while.
I missed you.
How are you?
It's been so long.
Why didn't you answer my texts?
Let me cling on to you.
You're mine.
No one else will ever love you.
Why won't you let me love you?
You're worthless.
If I can't love you then no one can.
I miss you.
I love you.
If you leave me I'll do it.
I still have the pills you told me to get rid of.
You're mine.
That's all you'll ever be.

By. Lauren

I remember touching his hand.
You asked me if he felt dead.
If he felt cold.
Numb.
You said I would feel sad.
Like I had lost a part of myself.
Yet I felt alive.
Like nothing had gone missing.
No need for searching.
When I touched his hand I felt the loss of blood.
The lack of emotions.
Like there was no one.
Yet I stayed calm.
It was as if I never knew him to be alive.
It was all the same.
The hand did not change.
From free to casket nothing was different.
He was only gone.
Only dead.
But was he ever alive to begin with?

By. Lauren

I wish I could go back in time.
I want to change everything.
You told me if it hadn't of happened I'd be on the team.
I just want to be one of them.
One of the strong.
Not one of the weak.
You told me if it wasn't for what had happened to me I could be more like them.
I don't want to be different.
I just want to fit in.
Sadly, I'm stuck here with this disability.
I just want to go back in time.
I want to change everything.

By. Lauren

I desperately want to date a girl
because I am lonelier than a squirrel.
I live in a small town
Tinier than any other around.
I am gayer than a curved line.
Lonelier than a tree.
But I live in a small town
tinier than any other around
where no other than a friend or two
knows I am gay.
So I stay lonelier than a squirrel.

By. Lauren

Is this really real?
Are you really here right now?
I heard the knock of a door.
Just my mind deceives me.
Are you really in my bed right now?
Or do I just want you.
Do you actually know my name right now?
Or am I dreaming?
I'm afraid I'm dreaming.
Pinch me if this is real.
Am I even writing this or are my thoughts just racing?
Am I just playing a game
Or are you here in my room?
In my bed next to me.
My heart is racing.
Is yours too?

By. Lauren

The sting of a bee is enough to make it **** itself.
The ring of an ear is enough to make one scream.
The yelling of the people around me is enough to make me tremble in pain.
The people around us influence one's inner self.
The words exchanged from one's mouth to another have an impact on one's conscience.
Because the world is constantly turning and spinning and making me think.
The world is much like our brain in the form it is constantly moving and we are constantly thinking.
And in the blink of an eye everything seems to fall apart.

By. Lauren

Swish.
Swash.
Swish
Swash.
Faster,
Swishidy.
Swashidy.
My mind is a washing machine gone rouge.
A high speed chase for sanity.
I've lost my own key to that of which I once owned.
A homeowner locked out for the 10th time in a day.
For now I will keep searching until the
Swishidy,
Swadiding,
Becomes a calm
Swish,
Swash,
Swish,
Swash,
Once more.

By. Lauren

You where never one to strike my interest.
Walking around with your mallet yet missing every cue.
Must I keep tempo for you?
Each beat to lose myself in.
Yet another tick from interest.
Will you ever learn the rhythm?
Will you ever strike my interest?
It seems like all you know is walking around with your mallet missing every blatant cue.
Must I help you?