"Black Holes And Honey And Other Poems" by Lauren Kells
give me your unbridled approval streaming
in torrents
cascading off cerebral walls
soaking my cells in viscous honey
tell me it's okay to be
to be everything
in one moment and nothing in the next
I need you
to tell me that everywhere you go
I'm hanging over you
panting like the sun
on the verge of an impending
star collapse
bathe me in smoke
and promises before
aching like the moon
i eclipse myself in gloom and ink
assure me
I'll never again be a leaky faucet
or sit at the kitchen table digging
my bear claws into dark mahogany
tell me that
the constant dull thrum of pain
meant something
lead me here
then lead me out
"the undoing" by Lauren Kells
please don't tell me you love that I have a ball of light inside of me a star heart
don't revel in the luminescence
or I'll drown in the guilt when I'm stabbing needles through my paper thin throat
dripping magma and marrow all over your new tile
you can feel my veins through my skin buzzing beating in a blistering cacophony
next to the hole in my artery that's been gushing for years on end
you didn't notice
cauterize my wound
skirt your fingertips over the scar
everyone has been pouring milk down my throat endlessly
drenching the scored flesh
they won't know I'm choking from the inside
until I vomit my soul into your lap white hot and spoiled milk
you will be punished for loving me why not
run like hell is after you big barking dogs with razor wire for teeth
chasing nipping at your ankles they want to gnaw on your finger bones
and I do too shards of you will always stay within me
the defenseless feeling of vulnerability causes a rift cleaving me in two
with unnecessary vigilance I'll do everything I can to send you slowly slipping away
from my searing incandescence
how can I burn off into a supernova if you still come when I call
"unwelcome tattoos" by Lauren Kells
something aches deep down in my teeth when someone asks me what denomination I grew up in I remember nothing shame, too-short skirts, endless side eye so much insatiable hunger all those labels I've ever claimed have stained me in ink taken a piece of me with them and left me with more questions than answers so i dig into my pockets for a descriptor and sometimes reluctantly I answer Baptist showing off the last tattoo marking my skin others boast theirs like a cattle brand while I spit that word from my tongue like a mouthful of venom it's a dizzying thing to love the Lord but still wear the church's fingernail indentations on my arm in spite of attempts to scrape them off no pride in the crimson semicircles of what i am not and never quite was.
Lauren Kells is a student at Lipscomb University in Nashville. She loves spending time with friends and family, creative writing, and eating pickles straight out of the jar. Her goal in life is to pet every cat in the world.