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Voicemail Poems •

Artist's Depiction Of Marilyn Monroe Crying

Once, there was a girl who became

woman too fast, went peroxide blonde

in a kitchen sink, kissed lipstick red

across the collarbones of every man

in Los Angeles. No one ever asked

for this: draft of the script

where Norma Jean undoes herself, ear

pressed to the phone, listening for a sign.

Enter the smiling mortician & how

can you cut into something silk-woven,

so soft to the touch? We all wanted our own slice

of flesh, amber bottle of barbiturates. Not

your baby, but everybody’s. Th
THE SHORE •

Lauren Badillo Milici "On the Last Good Night" — THE SHORE

On the Last Good Night

before you left & I left


and the mountains soured everything—


rain came down on that weird little hill


where your father built a house


and I, the last good woman, proof of myth,


carried you off to bed, of course.


god sent a flood, you said.


then a plague, then a fire. sins and all that. apples.


do you know it? I only know what you never


told me: how the body must starve before


it’s small enough to take


the shape of leaving.

Lauren Badillo
CLOVES Literary •

“I WISH THE SOFT ANIMAL OF MY BODY WOULD SHUT THE FUCK UP” — CLOVES Literary

meanwhile the men whose love i do not need

are free. the world goes on and on

and on. i can’t tell you about despair

but there are thorns

where there shouldn’t be—

the body doesn’t always want.

when the heat chokes what’s left

of spring, god will send a flood.

don’t repent. do not ask

for a miracle. whoever you are,

harsh and lonely, is headed home

again. wait for the fireflies—

a soft glow, a swarm.

you do not have

to be good.

don’t.
HaveHasHad •

I Think Burt Reynolds is the Kind of Guy Who Keeps the Lights On by Lauren Badillo Milici

tonight the sky is purple-yellow fire

& I’ve spent the day in bed.

sometimes I want a motel scene

starring coke on the dresser

or a gun in my hand.

I want the fairytale.

once I was drunk in the back of a cab

& a song came on the radio

that made me miss my mother.

I’m not too good at this anymore.

sometimes when a man says

I want to pin you

he means, to the wall

mounted like a prized buck.

we can talk about anything you want,

as long as you’re naked.

well I’m not,
Honey Lit •

Valentines: Poems by Lauren Badillo Milici

this is the good kind of cliché

where the boy is the only youngblondething

left in town & he’s lonely / the way God was lonely

when He made fucking everything

even the front lawn in West Virginia / littered with cigarettes like petals

and he needs to be

the kid who comes

& kisses the first girl he sees

as if his heart isn’t already the shape / of a permanent fist

but whatever you want, I’ll be

& isn’t this the part in the movie

where the boy drunk-stumbles home / and says, I’m sorry,
Wax Nine Records •

3 Poems

When James Enters the House in the Blair Witch (2016)

Remember When I Cried in That Church We Found?

It Only Took A Whisper

Lauren Badillo Milici is a Jersey-born, Florida-raised poet and writer currently based in West Virginia. When she isn’t crafting sad poems about sex, she’s either writing or shouting into the void about film, TV, and all things pop culture. Find her @motelsiren. Nicole Rifkin is a Canadian American Illustrator. See more work at nicolerifkin.com.

SAD SEXY CATHOLIC by Lauren Badillo Milici

I was God’s favorite, once—enough

schoolgirl in me to make Mary

sweat. not a fall-from-grace, but something sweeter.

an unlit cigarette wedged between two

adolescent fingers; & the skin like bruised fruit. now,

the only notion of holy pressed

between opaque pages, or bound

at the wrists. The sacrament of confession,

or the first time I ran my tongue

along someone else’s teeth. Enough

obedience in me to serve man,

to kneel in velvet & say a little prayer

for every single b
Best Buds! Collective •

Lauren Milici —

This week, the psychic is on vacation.

as if something came through and killed

In the bible, it’s the woman who looks back—

It wasn’t always like this.

It’s better with a gun in your face.

If I knew the truth, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.

it’s too hard so I stay

in for the night.

good, he says—girls like you

always go missing. don’t

but what if I like being bad

at this? ask where

he hit me and I’ll let you.

MY BOYFRIEND WANTS TO DIE

into the eye of a storm.

He tells me this over c
fields •

LANDSCAPE AT NIGHT WITH ARSON —

This damp earth is home to nothing.

Tulips, crushed under the weight of fallen snow.

Feral bones, abandoned. Picked clean.

The bouquet left on the bottom step.

When the house gives way to wood rot,

light a match. Collect the embers.

In the blue dark, there are no stars.

A howl from beneath the trees

says, no. No one can see you.

No creature ever wants to be seen.

Instead, take these seeds. Swallow them.

Remember: there is nothing holier

than a full moon, or the glint of a poc
SWWIM •

SWWIM Every Day — SWWIM

I bleed for the first time in two years. I tell everyone. Someone close to me says, wow, it’s like

you’re a real woman again. Amenorrhea means no children, or children if you’re lucky. The

Latin translates to no moon. I am a moonless woman. The Pollock painting does not depict me.

Often, I think of the infertile wife & the husband who leaves her. How nobody wants to admit

they’ve been left. But I’m a real woman now. Someone will keep me. Someone will look past the

other things. The ins

Lauren Milici | The Patron Saint of Nothing in Particular1 | Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Lauren Milici is a Florida native who writes poetry, teaches English, and is currently getting her MFA in Creative Writing somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia. When she isn't crafting sad poems about sex, she's either writing or shouting into the void about film, TV, and all things pop culture.

The Patron Saint of Nothing in Particular

for G The first time I break skin, bleed on nice white sheets, but not the last. Loss is never a person & no one can break this kid’s heart, she is so f
Occulum •

Two Poems | by Lauren Milici

Sorry

for the

breasts

that nearly

spilled out

onto your dinner

plate. For the lashes

that cast a shadow. For

the lips that were red, all

red, & the glitter. Sorry that

the band played louder, or was it

his pulse? Sorry for the gospel hymns

I crooned into the phone when he called.

Sorry my fingertips are ten Hail Marys. Ten

novenas. Sorry for the roses that fell out of my

mouth. For the way I pricked you & pricked you & pricked

you. My body is a gard
Yes, Poetry •

Lauren Milici: Special Feature

He doesn’t ask, but I tell him I don’t want to be in this body anymore. I tell him that the day Karen Carpenter’s heart stopped, her mother unmade all the beds & pulled out every single kitchen drawer. I can’t go, she told the paramedics. The house is a mess. I tell him that Karen weighed ninety-one pounds when she passed, & I am not far behind. He knows this. He knows that my nose bleeds on the days I don’t eat; that my happiest moments are just before blacking out. He knows that Death is my fi
Drunk Monkeys | Literature + Film •

POETRY / Once Upon a Time / Lauren Milici / Writer of the Month I

a married woman told me that I write with too much blood, too many fragments

of broken glass.

But Sarah, I said, that’s how it happened.

That’s how it always happens: the poem starts in the wrong place

and a man decides to hit me as hard as he can. Imagine,

purplegreenblack bruise and teeth-mark scar; the photo I took to prove

I was raped. Hey, I tell Sarah, I was raped.

I was raped and the story reads like a rejected script; someone else’s gritty noir.

There are no cicadas in th
Wyvern Lit •

Three Poems — Wyvern Lit

I sit on the floor & list off all the reasons why I can’t sleep. Last week, it was the couple fighting in the apartment above me. Glass broke, & then a vacuum ran for seven hours. This week, it’s you. In the dream, we’re at a theater in Florida. You’ve got stage blood on your nice white shirt & I’m wearing a pink dress, velvet & borrowed. When we talk, my knees knock together. You pick at the skin around your nails & everyone is watching us. My therapist asks me to look around the room. I can se