Dad,
What do I do?
You can't be proud of me
for sleeping with a man
who acts like a boy and
doesn't treat me like I am
perfect even though I'm not.
I mean, down here on earth, we are definitely
not angels even though I know you
would treat me like one.
We are human.
We cannot love perfectly,
but aren't we supposed to try?
I know you would tell me that he is the one
who is missing out.
And it’s quiet, but I can hear you say, everything will be better than okay someday,
but it's just not the same.
But I am human. I am selfish.
He calls my name
and I run back to him.
You can't be happy with me
for feeling like I need someone
who doesn't cherish my soul.
I wish you were here.
I wish my questions turned into answers, but it's not that easy.
It's not that easy without you here,
Dad.

By: Lauren Salvo

In 1961,
They were barely
old enough to drive,
but Robby’s Grandpa
had just given him
a ‘49 Chevy for his
17th birthday.
Robby was thrilled
to take his friends wherever
they wanted to go.

Less than a block away from
their high school,
Franklin Central,
was a railroad track.
Trains would come and go
early in the morning
and late at night,
waking the families that lived close.
And sometimes, the trains would pass
in the afternoons distracting students from
their studies,
and keeping people from getting home
a little bit faster after school and work days
were over.

One Wednesday afternoon
on the way home from school,
Billy crammed four of his friends
into that little red Chevy
and they headed
home for supper.
They sang and laughed
as they listened to Patsy Cline
and Chubby Checker on the radio,
As the chorus of “Crazy” played,
a train barreled down the tracks.

The train’s horn sounded,
and the tracks rattled.
Robby stopped and looked both ways,
but it was too late.
The train’s impact tore
the clothes off of each one of them;
stripped of their lives too soon.
They never had the chance to move past
that railroad and follow their dreams.
Fifty-six years later, five crosses,
one for each of those kids headed home
in the red ‘49 Chevy,
still stand tall along the railroad at the
crossing of Franklin Road
and Edgewood Avenue.

Leave
and he will search for you
in everyone else
and fail to find what
he left behind.
Only then,
will he realize what he lost
while looking for something
he thought he wanted
but didn't need.


- inspired by r.h. Sin

By: Lauren Salvo

My three-year-old daughter stares at the wall wondering,

“Will I ever see him again?”
“Why can’t I see him now?”

Everything she had is lost
because we don’t want what is right in front of us.

Instead of loving what we have,
We hope to God what we had comes back.
But of course she feels this way, she is three.

She didn’t care much about that stuffed cat
her dad bought for her about a month ago,
but now she refuses to go anywhere without it.
She wants to run to the front door,
as her dad opens it and she jumps into his arms for a hug.
She wants to listen to a bedtime story and to fall asleep
As her dad barely finishes page three.

She was ignorant before today.
She thought she would live forever,
and that the people around her would live just as long.

She doesn’t talk like she used to,
but when she does, she is full of questions.

“Where is he now?”
“Will I ever get there?”

I never spoke to her about death before this morning
with tears running down my daughter’s face.
I guess I was ignorant too
because I never thought I would have to explain
death to someone who
just started living.

Like my mirror,
who sees me
stripped of all the things
that I hide behind.
My eyes bare of the make up
that makes others see
me differently.

Like my mirror,
who sees my towel fall
as I get ready every morning.
My hair down my back
as I brush it wishing it was longer.

Like my mirror,
who sees me smile when you call
and cry when you tell me to
leave everything in the past.

Like my mirror,
who sees me sitting on my bed,
writing in the journal that
says your name
over and over again.

Like my mirror,
who sees my tired eyes
as I turn my light off at 3 a.m.
and cover myself with the blanket
you gave me.

Like my mirror,
who sees me laying there
thanking God
for the people who
love me back.
My hands folded together
asking Him to
give me the strength
to love who I see staring back at me.
To see my reflection,

Like my mirror.

You pour over me
and run through my veins.
I say one more is all
I need,
but I keep coming back.
All of my worries turn
into wonder,
my moments of weakness
are no longer there.
I fall at my feet,
your touch leaves me
unable to speak.
Tomorrow,
I'll wake up
and wait
for my next drink

Jesus told me
to love you with everything
my heart had to offer because
we are not here to love
only when it is convenient
for us.

Jesus told me
to focus on Him
when I felt lost with
no where to go because
He is my guide.

Jesus told me
to guard my heart,
for everything I do
flows from it and
He knows I will feel
pain when other hearts
do not cherish my own.

Jesus told me
I have a choice
to live every day
honoring The Cross
which gave me new life.

Jesus told me
that all of my sins, burdens
and heartaches are nailed to
The Cross, like His body
once was and because He rose again,
all of them will stay there.

There's something about a woman
who wears her heart like a dress.
There's something about a woman
who can hold you and
make you forget
the rest.

I chose to let you
inside my mind and
my soul and
even into my body.
You were my drug,
Toxic and unworthy,
but I am no longer laying
on the ground
where you left me.
I opened my eyes
and I can finally see,
I opened my ears and
now I finally listen.
There’s something you
need to know and it’s that
I beat my addiction.

To know, one day
I won't need you anymore.

I say I'm okay,
but does that mean it's okay
for me to lie about it?
I tell my friends it's okay
that they don't understand
why I love you.
I'm suddenly okay
when you ask me
for my body to meet
with yours one last time.
When you tell me you don't want to
talk about it when I try to stand up
for what I know deserve.
When you tell me it is my choice
to trust you, I wonder if it
has been a mistake to trust you
for all this time. So, all I can say is,
okay.

Oh,
the beauty,
of knowing You
are not so far away
and that You will never
walk away.
Oh,
the beauty,
of finding the love
You made for us.
Only in You, can we
learn to trust.
Oh,
the beauty,
of a broken heart
which you sew back
together.
Oh,
the beauty,
of knowing that Your kingdom
is forever.
Oh,
the beauty,
of our silent conversations,
written on a page,
or said in our minds,
with our eyes closed
late at night.
Oh,
the beauty,
of Heaven's open doors.
Oh,
the beauty,
of knowing that
I am Yours.

By: Lauren Salvo

My grande caramel machiato gets a
little cold as I watch everyone sit
with everyone,
but me.

School? Work?
Or school and work?

Noone in here is taking
the time to just sit and enjoy
the warmth of their coffees,
the words of their friends,
or the thoughts in their heads.

Not even the group of six
sitting by the window in the corner,
who turn the pages
of their Bibles to find
comfort and salvation,
but look at their phones
in between.

Not even me,
who has not
stopped listening and looking
at everyone else,
wondering if their reasons for being
here are better than mine.

One of you took my best friend’s life when he felt it was easier for him to die than to live in a house he could never call home. One of you sits in my student’s closet; waiting, waiting, waiting… for the day when he feels like he has finally had enough of his parents’ fighting. One of you took my little girl’s hopes and dreams away;
All because
she wouldn’t
do what the
strange man
told her to do,
so he pulled
your trigger.

By: Lauren Salvo

What the hell
are you doing here,
in a bar where
your beer makes
you forget the man
who left after four years?

Do you know
your eyes are brighter than
the flickering neon lights
on the walls of this bar?
What the hell
happened to you
that makes you want to throw
everything into
your bottle of Blue Moon?

As I take a sip
and I watch you take one too,
I ask your name.
I never thought I would dare, but
what the hell?

By Lauren Salvo

Let's make love
and coffee in the morning.
Let's make magic happen under
the sheets.
Let's make time stand still as
we lay here
let’s just feel each other breathe.

By Lauren Salvo

We wake up to the untold stories of us
that they think they know,
the voices in the background that scream
doubts into our ears.
Listen to me and I will listen to you.

They smell like jealousy, but
we smell like passion.

Their thoughts of us can be so sour,
but your lips taste so sweet.
They look at us and they can tell.
But don’t be afraid to open your
blue eyes to what we are
and what we can be.

Their words hit us like a ton of bricks,
but we hold each other to heal the bruises.
Now, you can close your eyes and fall asleep
right here next to me.

By Lauren Salvo

Some call me the beginning,
and some call me the end.
My sunsets appear on your
way home from work.
Coffee warms your body
in the slow frost of my mornings.
Your mother and father were born
on my fourth day fifty-eight years ago.
And now you don’t know whether you
should celebrate or mourn,
remembering the accident
that took your father's life.
You spend my days waiting
for letters that may never come;
and wondering if you will get that job you
have always dreamed of.
You lay making lists of to-dos you
may never get done.
Next month, you plan to tell
your lover you are ready for the next step.
Your wishes are different now that it
is no longer last year.
It is time for you to leave your ******
apartment where the broken heater
doesn’t keep you warm during my thirty-one days.
It is time for you to learn to love me.

What if,
all the words you said
are still true today?
What if,
tomorrow you decide to
kiss me and beg me to stay?
What if
you and I were meant to be,
but only in a memory?
What if
these nightmares
I've been having
turn into dreams?
What if
wondering
“What if?”
is better than finding out
what we will or will not be?

By Lauren Salvo

Time is what you feel you need,
and I don’t mind. All that I ask
Is that you don’t leave me blind.
Knowing you is like traveling
through space. There is no
gravity to hold me down
and keep me in place.
A continuum of hoping it
isn't too late.

By Lauren Salvo

I was the one who would make
your voice shake and get
your hands all sweaty,
but now I’m not.

The one who kept
your notes in the top drawer
of my night stand, and kissed
you in your red pickup truck until
it was too late to be out.

The one who would sneak through
your second story window
when you wanted my body,
and I wanted yours.

Then, I was the one you couldn’t look at
as we walked past each other at work.
But after months of silence,
I sit here talking to you on the phone telling you,

I was the one who never thought
about you anymore,
but now I’m not.