The Day Innocence Died
It’s 2:10 on a Tuesday in Worcester
fifteen years and two seasons after my birth
as I walk the cracked sidewalks home. Deserted
as I stayed behind to discuss a paper with
a teacher that expected more. Disappointed
and downtrodden I carry on to the
soothing voices softly crooning in my ear. The
street I walk is never empty as I go on alone
and the sound of rubber along the concrete is
inconsequential until the unmistakable screech
of old brakes sounds next to me. Conditioned, I
look up to the leering faces of men I do not know
with their window down and rolling tires in step
with me. After, alone, indecent words accompany me
as I hug my jacket closer and move my
jean-clad legs forward
The Love Song of Surrender
I walk alone
against a watercolor backdrop
with muddled thoughts
and a heavy chest.
Though I breathe not with contempt
but in passion for the weightlessness
against cobbled streets as I get closer
and closer.
I see everyone with everyone
yet their pitied stares are no longer sharp
enough to sting a heart forged by yours.
It knows its limits and its place
in a room only missing the smoke
of past patrons.
And while you with your glitz and glamour
sleep alone in sedate thought,
I dream of eyes I’ve never seen before
in the amber of drowned feelings.
Scared of Hot Things
She wears oven mitts when she irons
She uses gloves to curl her hair
while tendrils of heat escape
as she releases the ringlet of golden
to bounce against her head
She stands a foot away from the stove
to dump the pasta into boiling water
She heats the oven
and waits for her husband to get home
He asked her on their second date
Would you rather burn to death or drown?
Drown.
She turns the shower to a steaming heat
and stands beneath the stream
for as long as she can
Biographical Note: Lauren Pichette is currently a junior at Suffolk University studying English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She is also minoring in Women & Genders Studies and loves to incorporate themes of gender equality and mental health into her writing pieces. Alongside her honor roll studies she is vice president and prose editor of her university’s literary magazine Venture and is secretary of the English club Intertextuals. She has plans to work as an editor as her future career but hopes to complete her childhood dream of becoming an author. She enjoys writing poetry to quiet her mind or to scratch her writing itch, and loves writing prose in short story, longer form pieces but wishes she had more time to do so. She has dreamed of being able to create pieces of literature to be shared and enjoyed by others since she was young to create a sense of belonging by reading that she herself experienced. Her hope is to continue to do this throughout her work now and long into the future.