Sample Poems by Lauren Rose

---

I Want to Be

here, he whispers
beckoning with his big hand
he props me on his wide shoulders
like I’m a bouquet of flowers
and I curl my fingers
into his thick, sandy hair;
with my tiny hands
I cover the places
the tumors
will be
the place
the vessel
will burst
the place
they’ll remove a continent of his skull
and leave him skin to sunken brain.

I yank right
lead him into a tree
we laugh so hard
the tears on my cheeks dry
we stumble
a niece drunk with power
an uncle drunk with love

you’ve never tried these, he says
buys me candy
and we sit outside
in the blazing, Arizona sun
color on our tongues
the Grand Canyon yawning beside us
both of our entire worlds
napping in a cabin by the trees
and right beside me
I see the person
I want to be.

---

Hear You

your scream
splits the still night
heavy with creosote perfume
and the sweet scent
of darkness.

a terrified yowl of desperation
so primitive, wild, and raw
it still drips with the
gelatinous slime
of birth

a flash of gleaming eyes
scrawny legs that blur in the night
a dissonant, yowling choir with
jaws snapping
tongues lolling
drool foaming

a painful howl
rips from your raw throat
you feel their hot breath on your ankles
try to run
squeal as
rotten teeth sink into your
warm, blood filled tissue
suffocating on the
invincible clamp
sealing your throat.

I stand in my bedroom
listening to your garbled pleas for help
stare into the curtain of dark
wonder if
I ran I could make it
if
I yelled they would stop
if
I threw myself into the street
we could fight them,
together,
but, I can only hear your terror
echoing somewhere
in the mist of night.

I close my eyes
force myself to listen
to your wet
disbelieving, death moans
I hear you

I hear you.

I’ll stand here
and I’ll hear you
until my fingers swell
with blood
until the skin of my feet
ulcerates
until my ravenous stomach
howls.

I’ll stand here
and I’ll hear you
until those who sleep
wake.


Dead Deer

burnt bush skeletons like a haze of
unbrushed hair

ohoo
a dead deer, she says
as we drive past it

and never think of it again.

---

Lightbulb

have you ever watched
a lightbulb turn off?
seen the haze of light
left after the click
the memory of warmth
left behind,
a soft cupping
shape of the moon
in a hazy glow,
growing less
and less distinct.

no light cracks instantly to nothingness
blinks straight to dark
it atrophies
decays
rots
before it’s even ever
truly extinguished.

---

Peter, Eini, Ed

write your names in the wet sand
watch the sea
swirl it smooth
know you’re out there
know you’re not
know that your name
your existence
the knowledge of your soul
crashes among the waves,
know when that water gushes in
if I listen
if I really, really listen
I can hear a whisper

Peter
Eini
Ed.