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Lauren Sage Jul 2013
(It comes)
(In a flush of red)
(I'm still worrying)
Lauren Sage Aug 2014
I always forget that anxiety attacks are like black holes inside of you
And you breath and breath and breath and breath but its not enough
and you hold it in and the pressure in your chest makes your eyeballs bulge
And the hours spent on your back breathing and bulging and stifling sobs are timeless you are in stasis
I breathe and breathe and breathe but it isn't enough I bite the inside of my arm and cry until there's no tears left I grimace grimace grimace and
stand outside in the apartment building hallway and lean against the doorframe and stick
my face in the crack of a window and everything feels empty and ******* and terrifying and I breath
and breathe and breathe but there's
not enough air there's
not enough lung there's
not enough space
it never ends
itneverendsitneverendsitneverends
Beg
Lauren Sage Feb 2015
Beg
Clock ticking, winter
Feb lude
February lude
Purgatory/snow/ inbetween spring and slush
Forget this caterwauling city
Sever the only ties left get on with it but still
Drawn out slow and sleekly
Like the sound of hair clipping
It keeps slipping out of my fingers
You, us
"the beginning of the end"
Lauren Sage May 2016
Crashed to an end, but you did not expect any less and
Nor did I, the
Slice of a new scent between warming air the
Flick of a wrist behind a straight back the
Toss of heavy-lidded irises to illicit territories

I stepped out the door and bounced down the steps
A blind man passed me the wind whipped my face into
a flush
Autumn rain in May
Icy droplets,
The pavement was barely wet
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
She,
Thick eyeliner'd eyes
Racoon-rung, fingers slunk around
The overused pencil, smudged on her hand
And yet, it's not how she feels
More, how she wants to feel.
Oh, such a scarred star
In a sea of dulling graphite.
Lauren Sage Jul 2015
There was an older woman today at work,
She smelled like blood.
Heavy & metallic & pungent,
Mixed with sweat
It made me sick
And it went everywhere,
The entire place smelled of
death
& there was a bruise wrapped around her arm like a badge, purple,
yellow, brown, pink faded
& sick-looking
Her smell with the miso, lingering, deafening
I'm making a doctor's appointment today for my lymph nodes
(again)
& I'm scared
I'm scared I'm smelling my death on her
Lauren Sage Nov 2013
In her dream there is nothing but light


Spilling onto her body
Her face illuminated
Caressing her eyelids
Warming her back
There is nothing but light
Everything white-yellow
Warm
Welcoming
Quiet
And she knows it's wrong
So she gets up,
Trying to move a finger
A toe
Twitching her nose
And then she stands up


And she can hear cicadas
And she can hear the faint tinkling of a wind-chime
She lifts her arms and twirls
But her arms aren't there


And she's okay with it
And she opens her eyes,
But she doesn't see
And she can't smell
And she can't breath


And she can't breath
And she can't smell
But she doesn't see.
And she opens her eyes,
And she's okay with it.


But her arms aren't there.
She lifts her arms and twirls
And she can hear the faint tinkling of a wind-chime
And she can hear cicadas


And then she stands up.
Twitching her nose
A toe
Trying to move a finger
So she gets up,
And she knows it's wrong.
Quiet
Welcoming
Warm.
Everything white-yellow
There is nothing but light
Warming her back
Caressing her eyelids
Her face illuminated
Spilling onto her body



In her dream there is nothing but light
Lauren Sage Nov 2014
In my room
24/7 24 hours 7 days now
A week since you left it feels
Longer than it is some weeks are days some
Weeks are hours some
Weeks are milliseconds but this
This week is forever

I never saw the transition from workaholic into depression like
A literal depression, an indent I
Cave in myself I
Cave in on myself I
Go to counseling, admit it happened it should feel like lancing a boil but
It doesn't it feels like rearranging a sweater around a rock in my chest so
It rubs against the splintery undersides of my ribs irritating inevitable

Months spent in my bed i don't go to class i don't do work i sleep
Sleep everything away sleep everything away
My uncle asks me if i've been eating i'm paler than usual and no
No I haven't been eating how can you eat when there's a
Boulder shoving your lungs into your spine, and your intestines into your pelvis
I try and feel like throwing up I
Lose weight but don't feel any more worthwhile I've been
Caving in on myself, caving in on myself, caving in on myself
In the ruins
Furious
I still live
Lauren Sage Oct 2013
There's something about a smooth
Belly isn't gone yet and
That aching feeling of
Hunger, reverberating through my bones
My shallow breath
My dizzy head
Titillating, tentative pleasure, pressure
Lanky legs decked in red tights
What I want vs what I am

You tell me I'm stupid, you don't have to starve yourself to (you personally, I say.)
Feel good and
How hard is it to eat?
How stupid am I?

Just you wait
Just you wait

I'm starting today.
(I'm ashamed.)
Lauren Sage Jan 2014
If there's one thing I fear will always be a mystery to me, it is with the ease that some people fall asleep.

Like, seriously just lie down and that's it. That's it?

That's it.


It's 4am and when I lie down my mind is still racing a million miles an hour, even when I'm so tired I can't even walk straight. And I check every limb for a sense of weighted-down, for that sleepy-fuzzy feeling in my knees and calves, tense abdomen, fixed shoulders, arms crossed like a saint, or flung up, whatever feels right, trying to find the holy grail of comfort that may or may not exist depending on what night and how long until I have to get up. 5 hours. 4 hours. 2 hours and 46 minutes.


It's the sound of an entire town sleeping, the privilege of hearing the secret noises that houses make when nobody else is lucid, praying your mind will wander, willing yourself to wander into it, setting traps, trying to find solace when you're left out of sleep, when everyone else sleeps, and it's tantamount to the feeling of being picked last for a soccer game in elementary school.


I used to imagine making soup. I would imagine my feet on the ground, planted firmly, gravity on me vertically instead of horizontally. The gritty tile, barefoot. Savor every step to the drawer, rummage for the can opener. On your tip-toes to reach the can of mushroom soup on the second-highest shelf, turn the can around to see the label and make sure it's the right one. Get a pan out. Scratch a flake of dried food off the metal side. Open the can, pull the little slice of paper off the jagged rim, pour in the water and mash the solid with a fork. Turn on the stove. I would be asleep by now. Or I would have wandered into a variant scenario. The saucepan was full of water and dead flies. I had to drive to Giant Tiger for more dish soap. I was a kid again, when I was wearing a swimsuit and anxious they wouldn't let me in. I needed a watergun. It was summer. It was finally a dream. Free of reality.


But it isn't. I feel my head heavy, the grinding feeling on the inside of my forehead. I ease myself with facts that hold little solace. Insomniacs have higher IQs. Insomniacs function better. Insomniacs succeed. You know what? Insomniacs have higher rates of breast cancer. Insomniacs have frighteningly higher rates of depression, anxiety, memory problems, automobile accidents, functional issues, all because they soup trick didn't work one time cause I tried it with tomato, all because I woke up too late this morning, it's 4:30 and I have 2 hours and 30 minutes to sleep and is it even worth it?


When your head falls back into the pillow and you feel the muscle unfurl, the slight pain that loosens into nothing, warm legs, heavy knees, weighed at your ankles, arms crossed like a saint, flung up, fetal with your knees grinding into each other, your hips off-kilter, and your mind still races a million miles a minute, dances around every trap you set, your stomach clenches in panic at nothing, you hear the secret noises that houses make when nobody else is lucid, you see the orange haze of the sky from the streetlights of the city next over, you've seen so much half-light the color is saturated into the skin under your eyes, bleary blue, sharp blue, blue raspberry kool-aid powder, half-everything and you know you've lost the fight, it's over, it's morning.



Can you dream during the day?
Can you stop your head from lolling on the desk?
Can you finish the assignment when you're ankle-deep in IQ?
Can you simply get into bed and go to sleep?


That has to be the worst advice I've every gotten from multiple people.


"Just go to sleep."

I can't describe the dark, moreso how it fades away to blue or hazy orange depending on whether we're rural or urban. I've not slept in a hundred places. I've not slept while a thousand different birds chirped and it blended into some sort of organized chaos and I can still hear the most persistent of them to this day. I've not slept in light-polluted cities where the falling snow was tinted orange and the closest thing to a star was the airplane that I mistaked for Venus. I've not slept in my boyfriend's bed where I woke him up to half-stroke my hair at 2am when he'd been asleep since 12. I've not slept in camp rooms where I  lay there in the darkness, scared to wake them up, surprised when the prettiest girl snored the loudest. I've not slept on couches, after ***, before scaling 30 foot poles in some version of a trust exercise, above and all else in my own bed, and you can just lie there and go to sleep?


You can just lie there and miss all that?
Lauren Sage Dec 2015
something heretical in our sera
a peeking thing, half mischievous
and i, trying to see if you are my mirror if you
recognize the streak in me as your own something familiar smelling like the sweat beneath your arms the
glossy glint off your scleras the
trail of forest on your body
heretical
something wild in the the skin that slips beneath my hands like a
many-worn silk of some old god like a
selkie would feel about the centuries old earth and the
neverchanging of days, darkbrightdarkbrightdark

something freeing about the sting of winter air in my nostrils something
ripped away from my long exiles in the city something
replenished in the true empty fullness of a silent tundra a
dirt-covered snowbank a
grey iceflow on the water something
dissident and infidel about your soul and mine together something
potent in our marrow something
wild and
freeing and

dying
Lauren Sage Aug 2013
i think he comes back, everything will be perfect

i think when he comes back, things are going to go downhill very fast

i love you

but i hate me

i want

a healthy body
Lauren Sage Jan 2015
In this sparkling world, fled up North I've
nothing to write, nothing to say, nothing to write, nothing to say
dread, like syrup
sickly sweet and viscous
dread
lukewarm and softly pricking me
Lauren Sage Mar 2014
Sometimes it'd be nice if a lot of things would happen
I am not the not sleeping I am not the
Clamoring silence I am not the
Wanting a favor I am not the
Needing anything I can thrive on a breath of stale air a
Heat stroke a
Hollow apple

Watch me

I am not the jiggling ***
The unending winter the
Viola body the half-laden death thoughts the
Disappearing heart murmur the
University applications I can
Fall apart at the 60% in red pen on
Creamy white paper, thick, expensive, sickening

Watch me
Lauren Sage Aug 2013
Everytime I think there's nothing left it's
Only because there is so much left there's mountains of
Me left and
That thought scares me
I don't want to spend any more time like this

I wish you could read minds.
Not so that you could find out how much I
Wonder if this relationship is worth it but so
You could do more things right you could
Not ruin the moments before *** you could
Know when no means yes
(know that I am pig-headed and proud as I cry)
You could know when to hold me and not say anything
When to just be there and not scold or argue bad opinions
(know that I am pig-headed and proud as you cry)
(Don't tell me that my feminist is showing)
(I am not ashamed of that)

Something that warrants shame is me in bed
No strength to sit up
Crying because you didn't think it was a good idea to Skype me
(you;re upset maybe you should just rest)
And I'm so alone
And I'm scared of dying of cancer as I fantasize about
Offing myself with sleeping pills
(my suicide note would be like a coming-out-of-the-closet note)
(with less determination and more apologies)

I am so tired
My bones are fragile
My tears are delicious
My feet are cold.
Lauren Sage Nov 2013
And though lately it's becoming harder
(There's too many ifs and whats and too many)
Hurt expressions cut and pasted in between words
And I imagine they say more than tongues ever could-
(They don't)
But in between the pasted bits
There's me going off to uni
(You going off to nowhere)
Me bound to academics
(You scraping 50s)
Sinking stomachs
Punctuated with small moments
(The first time we made out and meant it in over a year)
(When we go a day without fighting)

And I stand in the shower
Scared I'm bound to you
(I'm 17 and you want marriage)
(I'm 17 and I don't want to miss out on anything)
(I'm 17 and I've only ever kissed 2 boys)

(What if there's nothing to miss.)

And I stand in the shower and wish we'd break up
Even though I still love you
It's not right for now.

We can never work out.

We'll never make it.

But I love you all the same.
(I can't leave you.)
Lauren Sage Jan 2015
Skating
Purgatory
Relief
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
Up and down and
Up and down and
Up and down and
Down.
Revolving moods and
Take a chance
Take two shots
And hope you'll hit one.
Five steps up and
Six steps down and
You're wrong
Always,
You're wrong
Try to sleep and
My former mind
She makes things whirl around in my head
As the pounds melted off and
Eyeliner appeared
Was it all just game,
Have I won
?
Lauren Sage Apr 2013
The world is ending, the moon fell down
Left a crater in the hearts of children whose parents were now just simply gone,
Sent to the non-existent great beyond

Moneys as worthless as amateur songs,
In the end I guess the Earth won
I'm adamant to admit,
My brain's not a muscle, my mind is not strong

You risk a kiss through my face-mask
Meant to repel love and asbestos
Well if I catch your flu I fear my life is no longer
Your lifeless eyes are all I lust for

Happy
Biohazard
We're
Happy

Is it wrong I think this is romantic?
Everyone we know is dead my darling,
My heart's undead I'll admit, what if we both got bit and there was one vaccine?
Then there's NO vaccine.

We'll ramble on about everything we miss
Like electricity and Christmas
On the bright side, hen February comes to town,
I'll be the only Valentine you have around

Happy
Biohazard
We're happy

I like to forget this desert tan
Drying the sun straight from the land
I like to forget this worthless hand
Claimed by your hard, stung in the sand
I like to forget this broken heart,
I will not eat, my deaths not far

(Happy)

You won't admit that things are better
Packed up and living in this desert
Well I'm gonna miss you when you're gone, but I won't write any grieving songs
And I won't kiss the sky and hope you're there
But I'll hold your gun and live your piercing stare
i like to forget  sometimes
That I'll miss you
And your technicolor pastimes.


We're happy.
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
You are depressed
And I am anxious
We are a headcase

And when you're crying,
I am swearing and probing
And when you're suicidal
I am angry and empty
I offer you no sympathy
And you ask for none

You offer me no comfort and I
Endlessly demand it.


Your depression (like an uncertain vice)
Squeezes around my life.
(i don't care if i live or die)
(an unintended pregnancy will be swiftly stopped with the death of its host)
(cancer may be met with a compliant body)

My anxiety (like a wet blanket)
Smothers your indifference out.
(you are nauseous with worry)
(my unending talk about cancer and pregnancy ***** the remaining life out of you)
(You love me but hate my conversation)

And now whose to say that
I am depressed and anxious and
You are anxious and depressed and
You're gone for the summer and
I'm home for the summer, wishing on blood.
We are a headcase.

And when you are worrying I am indifferent
And when you speak of death I listen without repulsion
And when I am anxious you are egging me on
And my Plan B is suicide (is it your Plan A?)

We're not okay, Lovey.
Lauren Sage Nov 2013
I feel
(worse)
with every passing day


Maybe in another lifetime
Another phase

The smell of your chest both
Comforts and sickens
Me.
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
Ignorance is bliss
Ignorance is (i wish i never found out about nodes i wish i didn't know what they are)
Everyone wants to happy (most people are!)
(this is not normal) Everybody has things like that.

I love you more than anything (love me)
I'm sorry (that we're so sad)
(that the calms between our storms are so reassuring)
(that my fingers are sewn to my swollen lymph nodes)
(that i'm so upset i have digestive problems)

I can't utter the words (they are *****)
(they will break everything)
They will cause my death
-IamHappyIamHappyIamHappy
^not^not^not

I'm not normal
i have a serious problem (i swear)
I don't even know if the nodes aren't cancer yet
I could die
I could die
I could die
(you would have to live with it)


This is not how we fell in love. (i'm sorry i'm so caught up in death
This is the Bane of my Existance. (i'm sorry i don't appreciate our relationship
It's getting worse Please I need your help. (i'm sorry i can't be happy)
Si je vous donne un biscuit, allez-vouz dodo?
Lauren Sage Apr 2014
Once I dreamed I was nothing
When I tell you I don't see the point in cleaning my room when I could be

Biking, the wind tossing my hair back the
Sour smell of stagnant water in a ditch, littered with cans
The sun glints off the silvery foil of Fruit Roll-Up wrappers and

Blinds me, it does,
We hear the rushing water see the
Dead grass, littered with spider holes (I told you so)
The clear water fresh from the crisp snow forcing it's way


Up the highway embankments, like how the water
Runs down the blasted rocks,
Once we moved mountains for highways we
Used TNT to blast away the meteorite I grew up on,
And now it is smooth from winters worth of melt water
Running, eroding, coaxing away the sharp

This is a new world come
Alive with water I,
I will flood,

No,

We will flood.
Lauren Sage May 2014
My head is lolling
lolling
Like a snapped flower stem because I rolled
I rolled my eyes too hard and the force of my bowling-ball
Irises threw my skull to the right, hard,
Snapped my vertebrae

I laugh because it gets me out of the
Work one more time

onemoretimeonemoretime

I am so burnt out I can
Smell the singe on my hair as I
Cut it after two years

My head is empty
Empty
Filled with calculus English chemistry biology chemistry chemistry
Bowling-ball irises
Sky blue, I
Stabbed them out and felt the test scores
(84 98 67 67 67 67) run down my cheeks cool cold jelly
(This no-exam feeling is exhilarating his
Exams in a month feeling is exhilarating)
Exhilarating like it
Takes my breath away, I swear my eyes are
Intact and just
One more month

Can Liza please come down to the office
I want you to make an appointment with me
Just to check up on you and
It's because I ran crying into the office because
I'm so scared my marks won't be high enough and
I'm going to have to tell her I stopped
I stopped going to counseling and
I'll have to tell her
Lauren Sage Jul 2014
I love you and we've
Been together for a million seconds, two years, countless silent
Minutes but I
Am confused and I
Wish there was answers
If there are
(don't) tell me them and

Written in the stars? Maybe
It is

Maybe
Lauren Sage Jul 2014
I love you and we've
Been together for a million seconds, two years, countless silent
Minutes but I
Don't think it will work I
Don't think it's written in the stars.


I know, at some point,
It was.
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
This
Anxiety is like boiling snakes in my stomach
Milky frothing water and peeling
(my)
Skin
(off speckled moles, preventative measure)
(I do not have cancer)
(At least not skin)
I'm blindly probing my skin for
(not lymphoma, no)
Any semblance of
(not breast cancer, no)
Caring
Is not for me
(I care too much)
Lauren Sage May 2014
Lysis
As in glycolysis, bacteriolysis, analysis
To break into significant pieces
Bite-sized, easy consumption
To free
To see the fruits of your labor in front of you clearly
Like a jagged piece of glass, where
The edges are not warped and deceiving as it would be
If it were a smooth and rounded thing

Lysis-
What I know
Life is hard to swallow but
It is better that way
Lauren Sage Dec 2017
MIDNIGHT revelations, or-
Not much so midnight as 5am,
(The darkest before the dawn, they say)
but I say MIDNIGHT because it
is softer on the ears, but less fuzzy in the head it reeks of
time still to spare, of cheeks tucked onto pillows of
a morning denouement, a chance to feel resigned and better even
if it is with puffy eyes and salted lashes but,

the truth, there will be no stolen hours of sleep I
am awake, that makes these MIDNIGHT revelations that
steal into my mind, set my heart racing, dry my mouth
much more sinister, yes,
and twice as telling as true as true can be
as hard as that blueing sky, the same color as
the snow, dizzying, dazzling,
those minutes of potential resolution ticking away
(but you must know) that these thoughts are the resolution
you have thought a thing, it is real, this is your ******
stolen in that slip of daydream between the dawn and the night
where the country lies sleeping but for those who are too troubled
to rest, they have bigger fish to fry
this is your night, your day, your comfortable bed to make
your MIDNIGHT, these thoughts,
like ice water over a shivering set of shoulders
Lauren Sage Mar 2014
Shroud, encompassing
The blanket over my head I am the twin of
The sleeping spring, hers is snow my sister
The one I actually like

The unending winter, blank white
Now I see why animals hibernate, in the winter there is
No color to paint your thoughts on The sky is spliced with the ground, blazing white unending no limit to ponder
No sky to ponder the limit of (lim as x approaches 2, calculus, my bane)
You tip-toe through pure white banks, your soul is ***** in comparison you are old ugly jiggly and soft in comparison
To sharp clear fractals, individuals sparkling even in the whitesky's frank stare whiteground whitesky white
I don't add up I don't add up I don't add up I don't add up

They say this is the longest winter ever recorded for Canada
People joke we're Canada we live in igloos anyways I can confirm
This is wrong; I have distinct memories of spider-holes in damp dead grass
Furious water rushing down rock blasted for a highway
Warm sun damp air damp grass rubber boots and most of all
Bluesky greenbrownground an imperfect world to wonder in
To not feel incomparable to
Mud as jiggly and soft as fat and muscle layered on bleach bones, bone marrow chunky porous redbrownred
No white to speak of, even my pale skin is pinkish dotted with islands of moles

When I wake up the blanket is a shroud over my head to block out the light and now I understand what I must do
Hibernate and forget like the bears I miss
Let the white light filter through colorful sheets I will feed off the blue light instead
Remember, it can't last forever somethings gotta give

Express sympathy for the car crashes and wait.
Patiently.
Lauren Sage Sep 2013
It's the knife of not getting what I want it's
Smelling your chest, inhaling your scent
Your sweat drives me wild, I'm jealous I'm not the same for you and

Feeling you on me, your palms tracing down my skin,
Christening shivers with your fingerprints,
My body melding into yours
Frustratingly unfair, and you don't feel the same, and why-

In the library, when I disconnected myself from your chest
Even though every smell of you was ****** and
Every heartbeat was a syringe,
I lean up and whisper I want you,
And you tell me to be quiet.

You slay romance.

And in over a year of us, and no one else
(And I wonder, what would elses be like?)
Under a thousand days but more than 500
In an imperfect symmetry of silent games and angry longing

I want to make love to you quietly,
I want you to instigate it
I want to lie and feel wanted, not be reprimanded for every stray moan
I want you to want to hear me
With such a burning anger,
The unfairness that I want it all for me, and all for you

I want us to be seamless.

So fluid and streamlined that it's impossible to tell where

You begin and I end.
Lauren Sage Apr 2014
These spins
Orbitals quantum mechanics
(Giveupgiveupgiveup)
80 my magic number
Average, all average? Once feared now
Desired wanted
CalculusEnglishBiologyChemistryCalculusEnglishBiologyChemi­stry
I am stretched so thin
But at the same time I dart what could make me succeed
I am not the studywart
But I am still the worrywart
Drown me in electron clouds
Make my noose out of orbitals
My spine will be a neat smooth l, angular momentum number
Spin me until I disintegrate
Until I am indivisible, Democritus, please
Give me an 80 and let me be let me go to Ottawa
Or let me fail gracefully
Disappear
All I ask.



My counselor says black and white thinking
Black and white I don't show up soon a
Letter,
I smell her office on the pages

Lauren, you have not shown up
I am unable to provide you metal health services respond by
April 10th if not we will close your file

It is April 8th and me,

Orbitals will drown me

I'm feeling lucky.
Lauren Sage Aug 2016
blaring sunlight
louder than cars
stereos
excess
dusty sidewalks
grit
dirt in my sandals
migraine
knotted incisors
empty
aching cheek muscles
slowly
that pull of un-infinity
biding my time biding my luck
the end of a rope hint of a smile,

snuck
Lauren Sage Jun 2015
The clippers on my wrist
The crevasses in my skin
Only few flooded blood
(I was careful, I made sure)

The burning of peroxide is
No substitute for your kind words
(Saved for them, I,
Jealousy)
Lauren Sage Feb 2018
HEY you have to BREATHE
in- stealing that oxygen and aether
your ribcage is a fox trap, in it lies that pesky hemoglobin that
begs and cries for sustenance, nurture those peripheral tissues
focus on the undulation of the diaphragm, the sticky heartbeat
the reddening cheeks that
scream that blossoms and bursts in your throat
but don't
let it out
the night is fragile. air crystalline. those icicles are counting on you
so forget
it get over
it just stuff it
down deep down and
breathe, OK
quietly
a warm wind thru an empty canyon a
billowing sail a
knife
Lauren Sage Aug 2013
There is no quiet for me, there is no
Peace, there is no Not Anxiety-Ridden.

Sometimes I think I'm done the lymph
Node is bigger but what the
HELL, cancer or no cancer I'll be
Fine

But then I look to the ceiling
It's 10:30 and I'm already
Tired (I'm tired of this)
I realize that this is
Me
****, ******* god,
Son of a ******* **** *****, THIS IS ME.

This is me mouth-breathing snakes
In my intestines, feeling where my skin
Depresses (d) at the end of my sternum THIS IS ME.
Pressing my lips prodding my beloved skin I'm comfortable in (I EXIST IN IT IT'S MINE)
THIS IS ME my knee hurts I'm scared for school and my life and
THIS IS ME and I don't want to die.

I don't want to die before I'm physically old, old enough to be abandoned in a retirement home

I'm only seventeen, please.
I don't want to die.

Please don't let them be cancer.
Lauren Sage Aug 2014
If I was not me
I would not believe all the things that have happened to me
Happened.

I would call myself a liar.
Lauren Sage Oct 2015
I'm climbing out of this
     Pit goodbye build me a rope out of
Good intentions watch me climb  and inch and struggle I will not noose it,
I am
     Worth more I am going to do this I am going to
  Win, I swear

It is in my nature
I

Can't drown my
Body won't let me

"Go with the flow"

Thank you
Roe
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
Roe
I'm shoveling raw fish down my throat
(Creamy and spicy Salty from soy sauce)

My phone in my lap
(For you are gone You boarded that plane You left me high and dry on my own thoughts)

My shorts are digging into my thighs
(Too fat Too white)

I'm popping fish roe between my teeth
(Each snap is a life that will never be Amniotic fluid runs down my incisors)

Eel is slipping through my chopsticks
(I struggle to get it down Barbeque sauce is all over my mouth)

There is a pit of snakes in my stomach
(I'm feeding them a one-hundred and sixty-six dollar meal I'm indulging them in my raw mind)

You're texting me still
(We're confused why my ******* feel like cobblestone We used protection)

We may be the unluckiest couple on Earth
(**** me **** me **** me **** me **** me)
Lauren Sage Oct 2022
Red electric blood
I thought of you again I
Bit skin off my lip in recoiled
Shock the reminder of you like
Buzzing of neurons, the missing limb
Fresh and shocking, both the
Absence and Presence
(alpha and omega)
That you exist in scope of me, you were here and
Now you aren’t you
Don’t
Lauren Sage Aug 2014
It starts with a thought
My body tense familiar that
feeling of anxiety in my belly again I
Eat half a bowl of rice at 9pm my meal of the day and
You're gone again for the summer my life is starting i am ready

It starts with a thought
I clean the scissors off they are sticky i
check the mirror for evidence of fat loss i
Try to go jogging up the hill but i am too tired too starved
My faulty heart thuds and my lungs shrink i can't do it
i'm not healthy enough

It starts with a thought
I count up my days calories one coke half bowl of rice
I am disappointed with the number i
can do better i can
really starve and then i'll happy

It starts with a thought
I think of HPV hypochondria lymph nodes pregnancy I
grab the scissors tie the band around my hair

It starts with a thought
the blades close around my hair long blond natural soft shiny crowning glory
10 inches down my back I hear
one last snip and the ponytail is free
I shake my head the hair is short
so short and happiness wells up in me i
feel so light i
feel invincible

It starts with thought and
I'm not ******* you
I did it
I did it.
Lauren Sage Apr 2014
What does a lover want to hear, that you kept me alive even when I
Wanted to die I wanted it all to end
I didn't want to **** myself but sometimes that sneaking dark crept up on me

I wouldn't have fought

But it's not true, I kept me alive
I made myself trudge forwards and I cried, I was a waterfall of hatred and salmon swam upstream they left half-moon scars beside moles,
Their tails were the silver nailcippers in my skin lashing furious obsessed
(i told the kids to wait a second and watch tv while i found their nailcippers)
(i doused them in peroxide and rubbing alcohol)
(i told their mother my aunt i cut myself while shaving)

it was

          not an accident


i could say you kept me alive but it was me, i kept me alive


what do you do?

i can say only this:

in your mind i find someone i respect
in your arms i find the sleep that eludes me
daily


it is not love it is

                                                          


                                                        More.
Lauren Sage Aug 2014
against everything it
ends it ends it ends it ends the
Stillness is worse maybe the pain in my
Eye(socket)  the tightness of my eye(lids) stiff
stiff with salt stiff with weariness
against everything it
ends it ends it ends it ends the
blankness in my mind and the
lackluster shudder of fear
weary
weary
too tired to breathe I'm
too tired for endings
Lauren Sage May 2014
In Grade 9 my shoulder broke under the
weight of my backpack
No joke I
found a dulling bump on the blade of my shoulder
Stress fracture, the doctor said after they
irradiated me to
make sure it wasn't cancer

maybe it's because I was small and frail and alive on
500 calories my daily bread I
thought I was strong broken
bones grow back stronger but I can
feel it all crumbling away I can
taste the gritty calcium in my cheeks i can
feel cracks surfacing like a tree exploding in winter sharp
like a gunshot frightening exhilarating

they called it a stress fracture but this is a stress fracture and
far more dangerous she says to
hand in the assignment today or it's a zero and i
pull it to cover my face newly smeared with concealer to
mask 5 minutes' ago tears in the bathroom but it's no use they
sting they bubble out like acid i am the only
girl in the calculus class and they just congratulated me on my
ability to handle the hardest class load the 2 other kids quit on but what
they don't know is I can't i
got a 34 on something else i
thought I did good and the muscles
on my back don't mean anything and my sparring ability with a plastic pipe-sword doesn't mean anything and i can't do it anymore i
thought I did good i
thought i could handle it i
was going to show them i was strong

i was going to show myself i was strong.
Child abuse, anorexia, children's aid, anxiety, of all things a 34 on a chemistry ISU is going to break me.
Lauren Sage Apr 2014
Then
she looks in the mirror, the sun
Scorching every detail in hard honey-crusted
Panic, fear of wrinkles

The hard blue eyes the stone cheekbones
(what's made you so wary, liza?)
(why are you so
hard)


The golden hair shining
at the top straw
at the ends
(parched)

cupid's bow, turned down at the ends
defiant narrow small muscled

i am an emotionless slab of granite and
i don't cry
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
I tell myself it's impossible
(or close to)
helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme
I spend time squishing my ******* together
(this is the end, god save my soul)
Lauren Sage Nov 2014
It hits me suddenly
I remember being a kid close to bedtime
nervous scared dread
for no reason

i forgot why
i thought it dumb but now
I remember being a kid close to bedtime
nervous scared dread
for no reason

Everything is worse in the dark But now
I don't have anyone to tell
"I can't sleep."
Lauren Sage Aug 2013
I'm just in bed
And you're asleep on the screen
In front of me your lips a cupids bow
(I don't remember them like that Are you new?)
Your eyelashes long on your cheeks your cheekbones smooth
The line from your sleeping mind to the parenthesis around your lips subtle,
Uninterrupted.


It's 6:03 AM, sure
I'm going to the doctors in 3 hours.
I haven't slept yet.
(You're beautiful when you sleep)
I haven't slept yet.
(The sky is dark blue outside)
I haven't slept yet.
(Are you threatening me?)
I'm imagining I'm in your arms.

This is how it would be, listen now:
Puffs of hot air into my flossy long hair
And I'll sigh because you're making it greasy
(But not move because I know you like the smell of my shampoo)

Your arm will be underneath me
Threaded under my left shoulder
(I'll wonder if it's uncomfortable)
(I won't move because I like this neverending hug)

My legs will be over yours, like I'm sitting in your lap.
(You'll grind me in your sleep like you usually do)
(I'll wake up sleepy-***** with your ******* pressed against me)
(I'll swat your hands away when you 'unconsciously' try to take my pants off)

I haven't slept yet you know
Because I'm saving up for that
(When you come back)
And our sleep then
(And all the extras)

I haven't slept yet, okay,
I'm waiting for you.
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
I backtrack, to the past
The house smells like bananas
There's a fly (on my knee)
There's a fly (in my mind)
(Feeding off my excess)

There are neat sunny rooms I'm
(alone)
I'm
(without you)
I'm
Okay, but not the
Best

The clocks ticks my hands roam
(up my neck, of course)

I miss you.
(so bad)
I'm bored.
(please come home to me)
Lauren Sage Jul 2013
I want to rewind to
Honey sunlight days and
Dust on my skin, the
Mist in my hair the
Electricity dam

You, me, and them.

Remember when the alarm went off and
We ran for our lives?

We had gone too close to the falls.



The management didn't like that.
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