You are afraid
That you won't know
Until he takes you into his room
And shows you the lines
He carved into his thighs
With a kitchen knife and
He says he didn't want to die
The night he unzipped his veins
And cracked 12 pills wide open

You still are hoping he stops
But you know
He will not
So you go home and throw up
On your clothes
Just to take them off
Pretend its okay
And worry for another day

A dark and stormy day
Stone-walled house and creaky floorboards
Rain tapping all the windows, streaking them,
As the windows shudder in their housings

A high, keening wind
Clap of thunder and a drawer being opened
The cutlery inside rattling
As the drawer comes to rest

A roving and admiring eye
So wet, reflecting the dull silver sheen
Sizing up the pain within
And the size of the blade to release it

A lightning bolt outside the window
Causes him to look up, through the pelting rain
At his own reflection, to the dark hair
And those sad, sad eyes

He tilts his head a little, wondering
Just how good a scar would look
To beautify what is the exact opposite
And decides, for the time being, against it

The front door bangs open,
Footsteps in the hall
Resisting that encompassing impulse,
He drops the blade, the butcher knife, back in
The drawer

"You need any help, Mother?"

Hi my names Lauren and I love things that can't speak.

Hi my names Lauren and I love things that break their own bones and choke on their teeth.

Hi my names Lauren and I see kids with bruises, kids with no excuses, kids with cuts, kids howling at the moon like mutts. They're begging to get out of their skin and into a more feral suit, they want their bite to be worse than their bark, hang themselves in the park, finally be noticed, glowing smiles like that of an alley cat, spat out blood last week, "must've been the pills, that **** kills."

Hi my names Lauren and I forget my name a lot. I write it in the hearts of heartfelt hoodlums, not so brave victims, mothers' worst nightmares, mothers who don't care, boys who dare set themselves on fire, light it up ******, you aren't getting any brighter.

Hi my names God and I ****** up.

Hi my names Lauren and I talk to the dead. They tell me about the papers they keep under the bed, poems no one reads and suicide notes with things unsaid.

Hi I'm Lauren and the dead can't dance when they speak. They're not too steady on their feet, dangling from rafters with chairs beneath.

Hi I'm Lauren and I ****** up, you ****** me up. You won't talk to me, and he won't look at me, and dad can't stand me and mom tries her best to understand me and I once hit my head so ******* the wall I fainted. Yes mom, it was on purpose. I thought we painted that pretty picture in my blood months ago.

Hi I'm Lauren and I write poems that don't lie about the truth, I write poems about depressives, lost boys, starving boys, ****** boys, and my boys. Those all go hand in hand. I write poems about heartache, bone break, undertake, and personality fake. These are all the same. I write poems about things I've seen, things I've done, things I've ******, and threads that were spun into ropes tied into nooses and put behind the pile of ***** laundry on the floor. I write about pills in dressers and knives in scabby skin and how much I hate god but love his children and how my brain is broken and I'm still stuck hoping I'll be left with something to write about next time I forget my name but can remember yours.

Nerves flare to life, screaming for attention
As endorphins flood into my brain, jolting my senses
My tongue comes alive with the scent of copper in the air
The only thought I can form
“What is wrong with me…”
As a sigh escapes and every muscle releases, relaxes

Then comes the shame.
As I try to remember, is it vinegar to get rid of the stains?
Did I wipe every drop from the floor?
When will someone next visit? Did I hide my tools?
“****… I’m so weak”
And the soft sounds of the bottle opening

The pain doesn’t even come until later
The bubble of peroxide, because the last thing I need is the red to turn green
The sting in the shower, the burn as the water pulls my skin apart
The surprise, when I twist wrong while I pull on my pants
“This was the last time”
The hollow sound, even I don’t believe the lie

Then comes the love, which tastes just as false
Out of duty, if only I weren’t so broken
The disgust is easier to handle
Than the concern in your eyes
“I’m okay, I swear”
I wonder if it sounds as flat to you

there was a time,
when dresses were taboo
and shorts stowed away in my closet,
afraid to expose myself.
i used to die in agony,
on a hot summer day,
just to keep covered and
away from prying eyes.
intentionally, sand would
cake my legs and arms,
while others laid in the vast openness
of the beach, begging for the sun
to touch their skin.
there were times i almost felt okay,
to show without barriers,
until i saw the eyes of my love
looking.
and for a split second, i saw
the sadness i caused and the
shifting eyes, wondering if anyone else
can see.
but you kiss each scar, you ask questions,
and you have a wonderlust to
dance over my past and to understand
my journey.
and now, skirts are my favorite things,
and i tell my story in hopes of shaping the lives
of those who have once been in my shoes.
and i'm no longer afraid, to wear my stripes.

Mother you saw the cuts on my hands
you asked me what they were
I told you they were barbed wire scratches
when I climbed up a tree
in our backyard.

Mother,
there are no trees here.

but you stayed silent
in the church pews
praying to a god
who couldn't save your daughter.

Mother, remember when you tucked me at night
and held me
because I am afraid of the dark but
told me nothing would go wrong because
you are the light of my life.
and everything is gonna be alright.

what happened?

one day,
you asked me if he does things to me
when we are alone
I felt your chest tighten
as i replied with nothing but a straight face
i forced myself to shake my head

just to see you breathe again.

Mother, you saw the lines under my eyes
you keep telling me I should go home earlier
go to bed earlier
but you do not understand
that monsters do not always hide
under your bed
sometimes, they welcome you

"home"

Mother, I want to tell you but
do you really look at me?
or you just see the
smiles
and how hard
I try not to make you worry.

do I really have to end up in
hospital beds
before you finally see
how unhappy I have been?

do I have to destroy myself
even more?

Mother,
tell me
when is everything going to be alright?

Mother you know how much
I hate enclosed spaces and
darkness
but right now
caskets seem like a pretty good bed
to finally
sleep.

Mother, tuck me in bed-
one
last
time.
okay?

such a broken little girl
cracked open her skull and
showed everyone her dreams
shame she forgot that all her friends
were monsters

silly little girl
sliced open her veins and
showed everyone what they had
done
she was controlled by a monster

You're the kid that asks how the cotton candy skies got that color
except now it's all blood red

"I guess God killed all the angels" he said

and I think:
baby my wrists are rags, ripped up rags,
and needles give you bad memories,
and my minds a black, empty, hole but it's still so ******* heavy
just a weight that no matter how much you want to say you can, you just cannot carry

and you need to stay alive
because there's no spots for angels anymore when they die
but I just can't bring myself to say it

and he knows people only remember things about me
like the fact that I like whiskey, and my suicidal tendencies

a lining of  lightbulbs
infused on the wire in my brain

he says Jesus was like any other psychopath ,
just a normal schizophrenic
and if there's a God
we pray for him to fix the problem he's created

what if heavens just like hell in the form of a maze
golden maps leading you to places you aren't any happier

acid trips into abandon attics,
blonde babes with ******* hair
and yellow teeth
cracked out, veins

complaining that the life they hated ever changed

he says I ruined the calm after the storm that no one lives to see
the ending of the bible
that no one has enough attention in them to read

O child of golden thread, sunshine, mothers mistake, I cannot imagine what you felt that night. I might just throw up on your behalf, half of me is feeling just golden and the other is cigarette sick, warm *** breath on my neck, exhale out and inhale in, let this nightmare begin, so help me God pull me out from under the bed or I'll hit my head on every board until I'm nothing but a bruised and limp body, I won't have a name.

Let's play the waiting game. We are waiting until one of you says it, "You win. Can I leave now?" I play this a lot too, were not so different you know? You and her and me and him.

**** him and his warm forearms, I'm watching us on screen like a movie, it's a tragedy, the way he flays those forearms open on screen, just shut up! All your good lines have been cut, cut, cut. But I love you, oh god I love you like the moon kisses waves and the sun leaves it's imprint so permanent it goes into some people's blood and they die. Do you have the sun in your blood? Do you have too much sun in your blood? Is that why you let it out? I can feel hot cancer bubbling in the trenches of  your arteries when I feel your pulse and I hope you can bear radiation because I'm not letting go without saving your wavering life.

But I digress. This mess doesn't belong to me. I forget who's blood I'm wearing. This tearing of flesh comes in puffs and in dull knives. I don't recognize the pain until it is dripping on your floor, half past four I am freezing, you are wheezing out cannabis, and he, he is alone in a basement, rope burn pending. God is sending me his best wishes and Mother Nature is sending me her doves' kisses but I am only speaking in a foreign tongue, "Let me go home," I scream, "Let me go- home."

But O child of discomfort and discontent, I don't know which of you I am speaking to. I can't ignore your eyes. I can smell it on your breath, that lonely sadness. That tongue in cheek, 10 cents sadness. Don't quit breathing, just quit breathing in the wrong things.

I can swear, when morning comes, you'll wash off all your skin and grow something a little softer.