By. Lauren

Number 1: "What has made your mind so naive to tell me the reason I passed out was due to the stress of taking a bath?"
Number 2: "You're the one in need of a therapist for the senseless concept in your mind I need emotional support to wash my face in the morning"
Number 3: "You told me to lie on the floor when I am about to faint except when I did so what gave you the idea to yell at me in your narrow mind"
Number 4: "If you eliminated one possible health condition at the beginning of the appointment why is it in the end I am always stuck with my feet out the door with that label?"
Number 5: "Are you sure you even completed medical school because it sure seems like I can self diagnose better than you can even take my pulse."

By. Lauren

Some days I wake up and wonder why I'm still alive.
I look in the mirror and the view of rotting flesh cascades over me.
My body is too fragile to be my own.
Breaking limbs and an unwilling soul.
”Why am I still here,” I ask my own self?
I do not want to leave my body.
But do I really want to leave this home in this body either?
My limbs seem to crack every step I take.
Societies pressure for me to be perfect is breaking me.
I don't understand why I am still here.
I am hung up in a world bigger than I'll ever know.
Just searching for an exit.
No more morning wonders.
Searching for a home I can call my own.
Both my body and I the residents comfortable in our own new home.

By. Lauren

Does anyone else read their poetry aloud and think "wow I'm good."?

By. Lauren

They exiled him one by one pushing him out the door.
Boom!
The door slammed.
If only they knew he was just like me.
Homosexuality is a sin the preachers sermon seems to yell at me in a blunt tone as if a bullet had just shot.
As I excused myself to go cry in the church bathroom my footsteps sounded louder than that of a gun shot.
A loud boom each time I took a forward movement.
They all turned and looked at me.
They knew,
I knew they knew,
And in that moment I was exiled too.

By. Lauren

Something happened today.
Something big.
Something grand.
Something I can't say.

By. Lauren

I was never much of a love poet until the day I met you.
Love poems always made me cringe until I met you.
Their rhymes always tasted like poison until I met you.
Until I met you a poem about love sounded like a story of prison.
A cell one could not escape.
Until I met you a love poem sounded like starving children.
A needy guest thriving off its host.
Just now that I've met you a poem without love is a poem lacking feelings.
Without you my poetry is bland.
An empty house only the poorest of visitors feel welcomed in.
My poetry without you feels useless.
It's as if it's not worth reading.

By. Lauren

Can I have a minute or two?
Just a simple waste of time.
A sip from the drink we call life.

Can I waste a minute or two to get closer to you?
A minute closer to the edge of death.

Can I waste a little more time?
Just to know your lines.

Are you ashamed of my waste of time?

Last of all,
Can I have more time?
I need to write more rhymes.

By. Lauren

Despite what the world says looks really do matter.
How will I get a job with crooked teeth turning every which way?
How will I expect respect when I'm not dressed like I deserve it swallowed in sweat pants and a tattered hoodie?
I will not be enough despite my brains if I am dressed like a kindergarten.
My looks will never be good enough to land me that dream job but at least I will be able to say, "I acknowledged that."
Looks really do matter even if you have the brains.

By. Lauren

L        
   o  
      v
         e

A none existent thing for me.

By. Lauren

The word youth,
Meaning the period between childhood and adult age.

Those very years sparked a flame in my heart causing the tenderness of my love for you.

Our youthful passion caused a yearning for the enchantment of later life.

My heart cherished every last relishing moment of those youthful years with you, my love.

By. Lauren

In the bleak early morning I watched as the adoral was passed from palm to palm in the swift attempt at teenage rebellion. Then I watched as the recipient gulped it down as if it was candy. From the early age of 12 children are exposed to a world full of drugs, ****** abuse, and other crimes too. As they watch their peers down a bottle of liquor like water. The only evidence left of these teenage crimes are the trails of ****** needles only the sharpest eye can spot in the lonesome parking lot of our very own school. At the age of 12 I watched as a girl was cat called in the middle of the hallway as all the boys yelled dam girl because at the age of 12 children are exposed to the early pubescent of later criminals. All of this  just because the school system was too flawed to see what needed to change and actually take action.

By. Lauren

They said what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me.
Did they know it would drive me insane?
The words I didn't know making me think.
What they made me say.
I said what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you.
Why couldn't I see?
These things will always drive one insane.
These things will always hurt someone.
They will always make one think.
It's time for a break.
Time to make a change.

By. Lauren

You ask me how I am and I just have to say fine.
Because,
how do you explain an illness that nobody can see?
It's like you're drowning, but nobody can save you.
I suffer from a chronic illness,
but
how would you know?
Because, my pain is as invisible as my illness.
To you I'm fine.
To you I'm far away from being sick,
but
my body is slowly rejecting me.
I did not know that this would be my life.
I just woke up one day,
and this was my new beginning.
For you every day is relatively easy,
you say oh I'm having a bad day,
but if only you could see how every day for me is a constant battle.
For me my body is saying no.
If only you could see how my body refuses to get out of bed, as the blood rushes from my head down to my legs.
I just wish that the world could truly see how much I am hurting,
and know that this is not going anywhere.
I wish people would realize what chronic truly means.
Yes, one day I could wake up without this just like how I got it,
but that's not likely, at this moment.
I'm not just going to recover.
You tell me, oh I hope you get better soon.
I hope you recover before school starts. This is why I don't want to call this an illness.
Because, it's a syndrome I'm going to suffer from longer than you could ever imagine.
This was not something I chose.
This is not something I would make up.
I can't really even function.
I miss going out with my friends.
I'm not trying to reject them, just some days I wish they could realize how much my body is rejecting me not them.
For me my illness does not define me,
but for me, as well,
it is going to be everlasting.

By. Lauren

I long for the feeling of touch on the palms of my hands.
The tingling sensation of her holding my hand not afraid of what will come.
Not afraid of what will be thrown wether it
Stick, stone, or word.
I long for the opportunity to love her even in church on Sunday afternoon, despite my lack of religion due to my fear.
I long for the warmth on the other side of the bed that she occupies with a smile on her face.
I long to know what it's truly like to not be afraid to walk down the street holding my girlfriends hand.
When normal people see a gay pride event they are disturbed covering their children's eyes.
When they see us they do not understand.
Throughout my life I have had to fight for my love and that's more than you will ever comprehend.
I simply just long to feel human.
Now is that so wrong?

By. Lauren

128 beats per minute.
128 times I'm sure I will die.
184,320 beats per day.
A rhythmic palpitation refusing to slow.
And people wonder why I can't keep a beat.
Every second I seem to speed.
128 beats per minute.
128 pumps of blood.
At this rate I am more blood than water.
Because my day is made up of 184,320 beats per minute my body is forced to hold.

By. Lauren

Inspiration I find myself looking.
Looking for something to do something to say.
Exploring this new place.
A fondness of delight.
A curiosity not yet fulfilled.
Inspiration where are you?
I've been looking for you in all the wrong places.
In all the wrong creases.
This place is not your home.
Inspiration why did I think you would arrive here too?
Why must you be so rude?
Inspiration why won't you come with me.
I'm searching and searching.
But where are you?
How will I live without this longing being fulfilled?
Inspiration all I want is you.
To hold your hand in this unknown land.
For us to be in this together once more.
Inspiration it's time.
I love you.

By. Lauren

I feel like a visitor to my own life.
A intruder looking through a foggy window.
Each step is a step farther than who I use to be.
All I know is the past.
I know not of the future for I am a guest in my own body.

By. Lauren

If a guy likes a guy
then he likes a
******* guy.
If a girl likes a girl
than she likes a
******* girl.
If you don't understand
then leave them the
**** alone.
Because
If a guy likes a guy
then he likes a
******* guy.
If a girl likes a girl
than she likes a
******* girl.
In the end
Love is ******* love.

By. Lauren

The feeling of pain.
The spinning of a room.
The collapsing of all that was once calm.
Pain engulfs the receiver
Causing a scream.
The transportation of doom through the once peaceful spinal cord.
Pain comes in many forms.
The tolerable,
The torture,
The needed,
And the long doomed killing.
Without pain some would not feel real.
With pain there's just want to be
Dead.

By. Lauren

"Look alive," the people scream at me as I step up to the microphone.
If only they knew that's not anything I ever learned to do.
The basic skill was never taught in kindergarten.
All I ever learned to do was be in fear. When I am faced with a crowd I am faced with fear.
I was taught to run away except that's not what I want do.
I want to face my fears head on but I'm stuck with my fear looming over my shoulders.
The people scream at me as I step up to the microphone and I am faced with fear.
I never learned to face fear.
All I learned to do was be engulfed in fear when faced with a crowd.
All I ever do is run away from my deepest fears and feelings.
I want to face my fears but I never was taught how to do so.
Our generation has fallen apart due to fear.
50 years ago no one would be afraid to step up and speak at a mike.
Our forefathers did not suffer from fear like we do today.
Our generation hides behind a mask on social media because that is the only way we know how to speak now days.

By. Lauren

I do not feel at home here in this cathedral of emptiness.
Not a place to lie my head only a place that will break my heart.
Snap my bones.
Then throw me out.
How do you expect me to feel at home here?
Whenever I stay here I hear thumping in the walls.
It's as if someone is coming to get me.
How am I supposed to feel at home here?
Sleeping in the rooms marked "do not enter".
You hide me as if I am a creature.
I do not feel at home here!
I need a break.
A breath of air.
I'm sick of this darkness!
And I'm sick!
I'm sick of being sick!
But you keep hiding me.
Will you stop?
Send me home.
I do not feel at home here.
Not in this cathedral of emptiness.
Not here where I can not lie my head  only break my heart.
Snap my bones.
Then be thrown out as if I was an unwanted creature.
A useless guest.
Just a waste.
This is not home.

By. Lauren

What's it like to wake up comfortable in your own skin?
No doubts of your beauty just ready for the day.
What's it like to not weigh yourself multiple times a day?
Calculating every gram that puts your astray from your Instagram model body.
What's it like to look good in anything you wear?
Not too big or tall.
Not too small or short.
Just perfect for everything.
I wish I had that beauty.
The kind where your skin glows even in the driest of seasons.
The kind where your legs are always soft no hair to shave.
What's it like to be perfect?
Perfect like you?

By. Lauren

They ask you what you want to be,
But
How do you explain
That you want to specialize in the exact
Thing you suffer from?
Because, you want to pursue a job
In which
Requires your blood to defy
It's own laws of gravity.
Because, every time you stand,
Your blood pools in a formation that would
Drown even the most talented of swimmers.
Your heart has to fight
Simply to keep you upright,
Yet you want to pursue
A dream
Going against all that you know.
24/7 your world is spinning,
You are dizzy.
Yet, you want to treat others who feel the same as you.
Because,
In a world without risks you wouldn't last
More than 5 minutes.
You don't let PoTS define you
Nor
Should they,
So here you are.
Standing,
As your head tries it's hardest to piece the world together as it spins like a carousel.
Your heart is pumping,
126 times per minute
All in the desperate attempt to keep you standing.
You, are trying.

By. Lauren

You fell in love with me so you kissed me.
You liked my smile so you dated me.
You enjoyed my voice so you talked to me.
You cherished my attention so you hung out with me.
You loved sleeping next to me so you stayed at my house.
You stopped loving me so I stopped breathing.
You hated me so you slapped me.
You broke up with me so I cried.
Now you come back to me and I just look at you.

By. Lauren

It's crazy how much can change in a year.
The difference between healthy and unhealthy.
The difference between standing and sitting.
It's crazy how much you will want to fix due to the changes of only one year.
A whole rhythmic difference in the heart and a deeper breath from the lungs.
All in the course of a year your blood pressure can change.
And your world may spin.
Only 365 days to change a whole person.
And then it starts again.

By. Lauren

Poetry,
A symphony of words.
A description of something far too complex for the average person to comprehend.
Poetry has many lovers
In every shape and form.
Poetry has happy and sad moments.
Poetry is a rocky pathway waiting to be discovered by the weariest traveler.

By. Lauren

You said you where like me.
That you knew my pain.
Why was I naive?
What did you know?
My body is a fortress with crumbling walls
Held up by a foundation that was never strong enough to prevent the settling.
Do you still think you know my pain?
Has your understanding grown?
A weary traveler unable to rest.
Are you really all that much like me?
Do you understand my pain now?

By. Lauren

Lately I've been crying at night.
Letting the tears drip down my face.
Lately I've been sad all day.
Hiding my pain.
I take my pills but lately I've felt conflicted.
Lately I've been searching for a reason.
A chance to not feel so lost.
Lately I have no words to say.
No way to describe my pain
Lately I've been full of regrets.
Why'd I give up on therapy?
Poetry was my only option left but I do not know what else to say anymore.
I have no wisdom left.
No advice to give myself.
So lately all I have been is lost.
I guess this is the end.

By. Lauren

Pain is something tall and thin starved to the brink of extinction.
Pain is something that hides behind a mask only the most attentive eyes can spot.
Pain is something hidden by all those who truly experience it.
Because, pain is a monster taking a hold of me.
Pain is a demon refusing to leave.
Pain gets stronger throughout the day.
So, pain will stay
And pain
it will be.

By. Lauren

A Poem Dedicated to one of my dearest friends

Today's your birthday!
You've made it yet another day.
Let us celebrate.
A life well lived is a life well loved.
Although there are hard times.
You've made it through.
5,110 days you've been on this earth.
7,358,400 minutes of achievements.
88,300,800 breaths keeping you here with us.
Let us celebrate the one we love the most.
Today's your day.
24 hours to just be you.
1,440 minutes we get to be proud of you.
Today just keep breathing those 17,280 breaths and let the world celebrate you.
Today's your birthday!
We love you.

Here's to 14 years of your life!

By. Lauren

I know not of what I used to be.
All I know is poetry.
Would you like a key?
My poetry knows not of an invitation.
Walking in at 3AM.
No need to turn a key.
He's only there when he wants to be.
I can not invite him to stay.
Instead I must tell him to leave.
I enjoy his company.
Until I must clean him up after years of imperfection.
He wants me to write him, but I do not know how to say I must go to sleep.
He assumes my arms will always be open to see him at 3AM.
I am sad to disappoint him.
It's just he needs to leave.
How do I revoke his key?

By. Lauren

Stop and look into my eyes, give me a minute of time. Hang on in there don't let me stare. Two weeks ago you lost your voice. All that was left of you was the light in your eyes telling the world that you were not okay. They stared into your eyes like a midnight sky. You beard the truth no one could stand. Their world broke you in two. Their world made you into a catastrophe of missing sound. Your missing voice was the only scream for help that they could hear that night. His hands left scars in your mind deeper than a razor blade to skin. Your body spoke the truth. If only they had opened their eyes wide enough to see. He was there for you the world will say. If he was there for me then why do I bear these scars you will scream. Asking for a answer is like searching for clean water in Africa. It's nearly impossible! The world has their own truth, but it won't line up with your puzzle piece. After he rapped you, you where stuck searching for your voice. After he rapped her she was left searching for more details to the story to tell her friends. After he rapped the next girl. The police went hunting for a reason to shut her up. Your voice will never be the same. They say ignorance is bliss. If that's the case then why is the world searching for that river of sorrow you felt that night.

By. Lauren

"I thought only sick people took pills."
Oh honey the things the world will tell you.
The things I want to teach you.
Don't believe everything,
It's not all truth.
But honey your eyes will deceive you.
The deepest pains lie innermost where you can not see them.
These pills.
These pills tell a different story.
A tale of two worlds one you can not see.
A world that lies within me.
A world where broken isn't visible.
These pills.
These pills are the only link between my worlds.
The reminder of reality.
The reminder that I too am sick.
Honey what you must know is sick isn't always visible.
Broken isn't always beautiful.
Pills are not only for the sick but the day dreamers too.

By. Lauren

When my poems are trending I am filled with glee. The red notification makes me leap for joy. Because when my poetry is trending I feel like I am making an impact on the world. When my poetry is trending I am ecstatic.

By. Lauren

I'm gonna start off by telling you just because you know me doesn't mean you truly know who I am.
You may know my real name but that doesn't tell you what my past consisted of.
My past tells you a story in which you can't understand.
My past consist of names that died before my reality did.
My body has always been this place in which I am afraid to go back to.
It's a place where I just want to cut off what does not belong to me.
Because my body doesn't belong to me.
My mind tells me one thing but how do I display that my body disagrees.
For I am trans my body tells me I'm a girl but my mind tells me I'm a boy and I'm stuck in this false reality in which I cannot escape.
In the course of seconds people hear my real name but they don't know who I truly am because my birth name is dead.
All I ask is to live in the body in which my mind belongs.
Except it's always my body saying that I don't belong.
The people on the streets don't understand because
yes, I am a girl but
no, I am not.
For I am trans.
"I am a boy," one day I hope to yell with no tremble in my voice due to fear.
Because I am a boy.
And a boy I will be.

By. Lauren

When we were younger our parents told us to follow our dreams.
Now that we have grown an inch or two our parents tell us choose a sustainable job in which you can fall back on in the hard times.
It's always difficult rebelling against your parents.
You know the advice is a *** of gold except you want to pursue a dream in which you are happy.
Not following your dream is a heart break.
Following your dream has more ups and downs mostly sorrow after you fail.
The gratification is so overwhelming that you would like to peruse more dreams until you crash, fall, and tumble down the stairway of success.
Then you are found nocking at the door of your parents *** of gold advice.

By. Lauren

Your wings wrapped around me.
Like a trapped fish I squirmed and gulped for air.
Your wingspan was larger than my chance of survival.
You suffocated me to no end.
I was trapped in your toxicity.
Like a viper you bit.
Thangs unwillingly of release.
No chance of escape was to be found in my desert of hopelessness.
Only a dripping of blood from which I shed.
The sorrow of my later life soon reached.
You had left me helpless.
Only a hopeless soul in the abandoned desert of life from which I am searching for an exit.

By. Lauren

They say I stare more than I blink.
How could you not when our world is so dark?
All I can do is stare and think.
I'm sorry that I am who I am.

By. Lauren

My body took care of me like a rotting corpse,
As it threw me into the gruesome cemetery of my own mind
Where the trees even screamed for help as their roots ****** up the poison from toxic bodies like mine.
Every last leaf that fell that fall was due to our toxins.
I was not alone in this cemetery of mental health abandonment;
there appeared to be more people than you can count on your fingers and toes or even at night like sheep.
All of their bodies had left them like a family too lazy to attend their own family members funeral.
This lonesome cemetery was full of lonesome people like me.
We all were just there for
Help.
So we popped a few happy pills or two, and in that moment our cemetery turned into a luscious forest where the flowers couldn't even stop laughing.
We had made our cemetery into a future for others like us.
Our cemetery was then named
"Mental Health Awareness".
It was our safe haven some may say it was even our therapy oasis.

By. Lauren

I zone out like a rocket lost in space.
I am always ready to come back to earth but my engine never manages.
It's always my mind making me write.
I do not know if there is an inch left of me that has not been weaved into a poem.
I once was my own person now I am shared with the world.
I once fit together like a puzzle but now I don't fit together at all without reading all my poems.
I do not remember a single one of my last feeling because I vent more than I feel
I am a rocket lost in space ready to return home.

By. Lauren

Love is a difficult message to convey.
As the flowers from your heart start to bloom you start to decay.

By. Lauren

Questioning your sexuality is like stabbing yourself in the back multiple times a day.

By. Lauren

You asked me how the weather was but how was I supposed to answer?
Did you want the weather outside
Or
The weather in my mind?
Either way there was a storm brewing.
The water about to fall.
So I guess I'll say
The weather is muy mal.

By. Lauren

You make my heart melt.

By. Lauren

Bury me in the pink petunias I used to call home.
As my heart stops beating.
My mind stops over analyzing and contemplating.
My hands stop racing to write down all the words I create per second.
My mouth stops moving.
And my poems stop generating.
So bury me in the pink petunias I now call home once more.

By. Lauren

I look out the window in hope of seeing your beautiful eyes looking back at me.
You always knew how to shine right into my thoughts almost as if you where the sun.
Your brown eyes sparked a light in me that could not seem to burn out.
Your eyes never dulled even in the darkest of times.
I always loved how even when you where sad your eyes still produced a happy vibe.
You made me want to smile even after my pet died.
Your eyes took care of my heart igniting a flame of love in me.
I fell for your rays like a flower searching for the sun.
Except soon a cloudy day came.
Your love for me depleted and you no longer shone.
Today I look out the window once more and see your eyes have dulled and now escaped my view.
And once more my heart has withered.

By. Lauren

Speaking has never been a talent of mine. I think more than I speak and often find myself thinking and forget to say what I was thinking.
I observe and think then I preserve the sight in the form of poetry.
I know it is not convenient to live this way. It's just this is who I am; the girl who thinks but does not seem to speak.

By. Lauren

They say if you repeat a word it eventually losses it's meaning.
Is this the case for human life?
A repetition of birth and death.
The repetition of 7,655,957,369 people.
Have we lost our meaning?
Death has became an every day affair along with birth.
Why do we grieve if we have already lost our meaning.

By. Lauren

There once was a time I could look into your eyes and actually see life.
Now it's just a fantasy.
No glimmer of hope not even of chance.
All I can see is death.
You are not gone from this world yet.
Where has your fun gone?
Once upon a time you enjoyed time.
Now all you see is black and white.
The minute hand never seems to move to you.
You do not hear the ticking.
Everything is frozen to you.
You do not see the play button.
Can I help you?
Just this once.

By. Lauren

Shame them for being virgins.
Shame them for not being virgins.
I miss your childhood innocence.
Rumors never seemed to leap from your lips those days.
Now rumors spread like wildfire.
Melting faster than a ice cube on a summer day.
Why dose it matter to you?
Must one scream their ****** status at the early age of 15?
You will shame me either way.
Why must I share the news?
If you really care yes I am a ******.
It's just I will be shamed either way.
You will always
Shame them for being virgins.
And even
Shame them for not being virgins.
Your childhood innocence will never retreat back to your lips
so I guess none of us are truly virgins after all.