More drinks,
staying up late,
wrestling ambition with excuses,
replaying moments,
picking things apart, 
revisiting the "just one last time"-
I don't know when to stop in so many ways
but 
the whiplash of my speeding love
& how quickly it can crash for me
will always be 
better to me 
than a safe ride. 

.Laura Curren.

Happiness shouldn't be a threat; 
if you're grabbing at it 
with the notion that it will leave you 
like those who've erased your name,
how long would it really stay? 
If you 
tie it to a chair,
question why it's there,
then release your ropes 
& watch it escape to a softer place,
you prove yourself right. 

 .Laura Curren. 










You're in love with the way 
she understands your pain,
the way your name sounds as though 
it flows down & around her throat 
like the hair falling over her shoulders 
& her neck that curves like the dip of 
a lunar crater 
that you want to taste 
& leave your mark on-
& this bend of a moon,
this scarred & glowing body 
gravitates to the world 
spinning freely 
in a universe of possibility
where she chooses 
you. 

.Laura Curren.

I'm a sensitive fucking soul 

pretending to be tough, 

using swear words as declare words,

as commas & adjectives,

wanting the last words

because they hurt me the most.

Everything is amplified 

& plays in my head without asking. 

Everything I try to take 

& chase 

into writing. How else can I 

share this world other

than its message, my message:

deep feeling people,

I love you.

I love the way things can slice at you 

or heal you. 

I love how your eyes already express your words.

I love how you love.

I love how you fuck. 

I love when you're climbing through your thoughts

looking sadly or pleasantly lost. 

.Laura Curren.

Every knife you pull out of the dark corners of your mind 
is polished by your explosive feelings. 
They carve at the sensitive parts of me...
I stop them from getting too deep. I release you from me. 
If my honesty makes your anger reach for ways to hurt me, 
I can see we're searching for different things. 
I'm trying to tame my own flames while I watch you 
burn everything around you. 
Go ahead, turn my advice, my perspective 
into a black silhouette of what used to be. 

.Laura Curren.

If I take any insults I've held on to
& throw them down a well that I shut close,
they don't disappear 
but they starve for attention. 
I show them I power my thoughts into verbs, 
I let in light. The language I choose to keep, 
the words I choose to hear in my head, affect me.
I need to treat myself as a friend. 
If I wouldn't say what I say to myself 
to anyone else, I should reconsider the messages. 
& if I feel as though I'm neglecting myself, 
I need to remember me. 
I should be more loving to myself 
& more curious
like I want to  
impress myself. 

.Laura Curren.

I want to know you more,
it's as easy & as complicated as that.
I want you to know
I make mistakes & I don't know how to always carry them either;
I think they'll be too heavy for you already,
maybe this will all spill over.
But I think we might be worth a try. 
I don't want to be shy about my affection.
Your eyes undress my inhibitions

& I want you to
spread your thoughts of me
over my skin so I can 
feel how you see me.
I like how I see you.
I like the way our lips 
fold like envelopes
holding letters I want to read 
repeatedly.

.Laura Curren.

"I'm jealous of your happiness,"
you told me. Instead of being alarmed,
instead of protecting 
all the light in my eyes from you, 
I thought this meant I wasn't doing 
what I should be doing. 
"It's not your job," my mom reminded me, 
real love reminded me. But to me it was, 
& now here I had to be happy for two people.
I had to unchain my self control 
to try & build you a garden 
you had left neglected.
I planted the seeds of my own memories-
this is what love looks like, 
can't you see it! 
I picked all my flowers 
& gave them to you 
but you held them like weeds 
& asked what they were.  
All my wishes blew away in the wind.
You saw thorns & mud 
& I felt my failure 
to make you see what I do.
but this is not where love grows, 
this is where I learn to leave 
what hangs heavily on me. 
        .Laura Curren.






Waiting rooms contain
the energy of all your

thoughts waiting for you. 









I can tell you want to feed off of my reactions.
Your aggression murders the romance of conversation.
Words are twisted until I can't even see their shape anymore.
You want me to be angry like you.
You want to feel in control.
You want to stomp loudly & carry a big stick.
but I won't pull swords out of my throats like this.
I won't shoot poison arrows that blame bodies for being in the way
I can suspect at the core you're just a little boy inside,
just a man who has suppressed cries,
& if pain stays in the corner it was cast
then it's shadow begins to rip the light out of the room.

If I were to paint 
our love I'd need more colors 
than this earth offers. 

Haiku 54 .Laura Curren.













The topography 
of your body is something 
I want to explore.

Haiku 55 .Laura Curren. 








There's still life pumping
under scars.

-Six word story challenge 

.Laura Curren.






Our dips & curves 
pulsate together 
like sound waves,
music that 
penetrates my body & mind.



You want me tonight.
You want an electric touch
to light your dark moods.
You want to explode
into a new universe.
You want somewhere else.
You want to feel the 
present with no past anchors,
no future demons. 
You want all of me
to forget yourself & time.
You want none of me
if you won't allow me to
be significant. 
I don't want to be
just a taste, the sweat on your 
back rolled onto sheets.
I want someone who
makes reality seem like
the greatest escape. 

.Laura Curren.

My dad talks to plants 
& objects, giving more life 
to things when he can.

Haiku 53.Laura Curren. 













I didn't understand heartache 
until I saw my eyes in someone else.
Past problems given to me by 
who I chose to be with filled my veins. 
because I chose to take them.
I took everything I could from hearts 
I gave everything I could to.
I kept their pain with me & spread it on my chest
blocking out any light that tried to cut through.
I let it cover me angrily until it peeled into sorrow,
until it was fading away with the days 
but I found myself giving it to
anyone who dared to be close to me during those times.
I saw what I had been going through in their eyes.

.Laura Curren. 

After my boyfriend in high school 
tried to kill himself, I dyed my hair black.
I let all the colors in me 
turn into ash & stone; 
I let it be known 
in my face,
in my hair.
My friends said
"You lost your spirit."
But I didn't hear it.
I was lost in the black he & I created. 

.Laura Curren.








My mom has a love
of what my dad calls 
silly supernatural things.
Somewhere between my mom's mysticism 
& my dad's skepticism, I was born. 

.Laura Curren.

                  

                   I fell in love with 

                   the promises in your eyes

                   spreading to my skin. 

                   I fell in love with 

                   being the one to disarm 

                   you & make you come.

                   I wanted to taste

                   your time & your light & your 

                   dark in this world. 

                   I wanted it all. 

                   I wanted you to follow

                   the words in my eyes.

                   But I was too much

                   for the half hearted who want 

                   fun with no questions.

                   Anyone could call 

                   my kind of love "crazy" if 

                   they're not used to it.

                   So it proves this time

                   my love is a tight fit for 

                   your chest & my mind.

                   I cry until black

                   binoculars frame my eyes;

                   feelings magnify.

                   My outlook lets wounds 

                   bleed or evolve into scars 

                   with my pain's blessing. 
    
                   .Laura Curren.

We've always been based
on sex & threats; getting close
then ripping apart.

Haiku 49 .Laura Curren.

I thought about it
but I felt it even more; 
I let that side win. 

Haiku 1 .Laura Curren.

Sometimes you know the answer already 
but you need someone else to ask the question.
I was drawn to his laugh & the way it bounced 
around his ribs & out of his chest,
the way his sorrows pulled his eyes to the ground
& how his hands spilled the words out
through the music he made,
through a touch I craved,
how the concert we went to in the rain made us peel off 
our wet clothes & melted our mouths together, 
how maybe I could lace lights around his dark 
& make him think my love was a night sky to 
make him feel alive. 
I wanted his sad, the looks in his eyes. 
I wanted his warmth around me. 
I made excuses for his distance. 
I became a therapist in my own head. 
My friend could see my deflated pride trying to breathe 
whatever promise was left hanging in the air. 
She sat & listened to the story of him I built. 
She listened to me say, "He's got a lot going on. 
He has a lot of stress in his life...he's really busy. 
He has a crazy schedule."
Then she turned & looked at me & said, 
"Does he know yours?" 
.Laura Curren.

For awhile it feels like the salt of our wounds 
will never let our love grow again.
All the resentment has pulled out roots 
& broken off branches. 
Our toxic ways have cracked the ground.
The land mines we slink around  
& simultaneously throw by pretending not to care 
make it hard to find a place to rest.   
Despite all this, I'm always surprised to see seeds 
from my memory sprouting. You & I laughing & touching
like nothing could sabotage it in those moments. 
When you come back to me you're suspiciously sweet 
& spread over my tongue. But the taste of our passion 
running down my lips becomes vines &  weeds 
tangling me. 
I cut you down when I feel you growing out of my control 
& away from me. 
While I'm trying to find a balance between feeding 
or killing me, 
real love waits somewhere else entirely. 

.Laura Curren.

Circles 

Dark below the eyes, 
stained rings under sweating drinks, 
patterns in the mind. 

Haiku 47 .Laura Curren. 

I won't fight your past
demons; I'll hold their hands &
tell them, "You can't stay."

Haiku 46 .Laura Curren. 

You come when you want
just like creativity, 
without asking me
.Laura Curren.



When I'm gone 

you can

appreciate me 

quietly

by wishing I was there

when something funny happens. 
.Laura Curren. 






The poetry of 

my soul is craving to be
read by your whole heart.
.Laura Curren.






You understand 

how to peel 
layers off 
outside & within me. 
I surrender to 
the look in your eyes 
& my weakness for 
your hands on my skin. 
.Laura Curren.

I hope in the midst 

of one of your tornadoes, 

you can scream louder than it,

over everything that you're throwing 

at yourself.  

& I'm not saying 

the sun is coming out right away, 

but be kind to yourself today. 

.Laura Curren.

Dig into me,
manipulate me into shapes,
into states.
Let me run through your hands.
Let me go 
as abruptly as the tide. 
but I am not the sand 
for you to grab or fall into,
I am not the shore 
to rest your tired breath.  
I am more than 
the sides of me you perceive;
I am my own world 
& I choose your significance. 

.Laura Curren.







My words can be sharp 
but I have a soft tongue to
suck out my poison 
Haiku 43 .Laura Curren.







You can let it all become a bitter pile 
of your own rubble. You can tell others 
this is where you lost your sense of [whatever], 
when this person did that to you. 
You can point to this & that 
when your energy hangs stagnantly
like the smell of something forgotten.
Or you can hold on to the music in your chest,
you can rummage through the dirt & what's left
& pull out sharp pieces that become polished 
with your perception. 
The shards of truth & experience 
could build a wall
or a mirror. 


.Laura Curren. 

I would tear down the stars with my anger,
uproot the earth with my grief 
& cry an ocean to swim to you,
waiting just as you were. 
I would stretch the boundaries of time 
to make a world where you are 
alive. 

.Laura Curren.













Your eyes sing to me.
Music plays in your pupils 
& I want to dance.

















My ex boyfriend in college
was slowly collecting all my details
& discovering I could be quite the mess maker,
that I could really wear my heart on my sleeve
in the form of dishes & clothes becoming summits,
in the form of arbitrary trash
& sacrificed toothpaste all over the sink.
All my thoughts could swell
into on

Spread your thoughts of me 
over my skin so I can 
feel how you see me

Haiku 42.Laura Curren.








My dad hates any kind of shopping 
(unless it's for telescopes on eBay). My mom asked him 
to go to the grocery store for her 
on Christmas Eve of all days; 
"Terry I need two pounds of walnuts 
for the cinnamon rolls please. Two pounds. Walnuts." 
The anxiety I inherited is brewing in him 
& his white caterpillar eyebrows rise in concern for this errand. 
She again calls out "Two pounds of walnuts!" as his tall white haired head bobs out the door. I can imagine a palpable chaos 
inside the store, the holiday music playing too fast, like a demented carousel taking the rest of the year with it. 
I imagine the avalanches of buyers in the aisles 
& crowded & rushed cashiers looking at the clocks too. 
My dad returns home so proud of himself 
for surviving the task & for pleasing my mom. 
He says most triumphantly, "I got your almonds! Two pounds." 
My mom smiles a little crescent moon smile 
& places her palm on my dad's shoulder & says, 
"Thank you," 
& then goes back to making walnutless cinnamon rolls. 

.Laura Curren.