Lauren is a 22 year old poet and mechanical engineer from Cincinnati Ohio. She attends Vanderbilt University, and relies on poetry when elections, church shootings, and police brutality leaves her speechless.
there’s a room outside heaven where black boys go to cry
they enter single file
lowering hoods & hands at the door
there is standing room only
there are wide eyes only
slowly, they introduce themselves with first day of school jitters
they compliment each other’s Nikes & mixtapes
every laugh and
nah bro, i’m just trynna get like you
is absorbed by the walls
one boy asks
about the bullet holes in everyone’s back
they realize it all at once
they are missing their own funerals
their jaws unhinge to match their open caskets
and hollow moans escape their throats
a new gunshot echoes
as a mother replays her son’s body-cam footage
it deafens them
a ghost boy screams the word
unfair in his sister’s voice, while another
collapses under the weight of his father’s sigh
it takes them days to grieve like this
to cry like this
each time the phrase too young is muttered
two spirits merge —
they exhaust themselves.
⌿
