In their debut chapbook, Reynolds examines ways to weaponize and abandon girlhood after being assaulted.

Swallowing the Ash

I want to punch a wall–
skin and clean my knuckles in plaster.

I want to go to the ER
for something tangible.

⧫

If I was a dog, I would have been put down by now.
⧫

I want to be a Malibu Barbie Doll to
pull apart my joints and scrub the disease 

"Malibu" (Best of the Net Nominated) & "Some Call It Greed"

if words were meant to elaborate on
us, we would have to wait until the
waves left the sea to learn the
language. do you ever reminisce
& remember driveway PIG or
midnight microwave nachos?do
you ever not miss me but hold
pinkie promises to the heart

i realized i forgot to say i love you

My Father Votes in Favor of Capital Punishment

and it gives me hope
that he won’t kill us.

My Father Votes in Favor of Capital Punishment

I bowed, bah-ed, been the perfect black sheep
to the perfect midwestern farmers, and still,

I’m milliliters from death on their barn floor.

In My Dreams, My Family Tries to Euthanize Me

i spy through the kaleidoscope

and yearn through jupiter, thirty-six moons, every black 
hole just to find the parallel universe on earth. i never 
had imaginary friends as a kid, but i swore there was
someone on earth who remembered us.

on saturn, we watched earth revive herself

water rations allowed three showers per day per 
home, but multigenerational homes 
got five a day. two showers equal a 
bath, and my mother made sure my 
sister and i played mermaids each 
sunday. poured  lavender salts in and 
called it the arctic

playing mermaids each sunday

my great-grandfather left his wife on earth

he boarded the lifeship with my grandmother and rationalized the goodbye hugs to his son. watered the

roses with prayers and soldered his wedding ring to the doorknocker.

"we lived on saturn" & "my great-grandfather left his wife on earth"

I lounge over these Victorian banisters while old family
secrets burst through every hinge in the house.

Gengangere ask me to bite my tongue but yell
at the blood on my chin and the splatter on the wood.

Gothic Pixie Bipolar Bitch

I was dancing around to Fearless and
Glee when I said, “that’s too much, man.”

I burned every psalm and buried each prayer.
I screamed in parking garages for new gods.

Taylor Swift Releases "Midnights (3am version)" or My Friend and I Watch *That* Episode of "Bojack Horseman"

i swear this one bangs so email me for a document u can actually read😭

PCL-5 Rewritten by a Survivor

It was the year I learned death doesn’t end with fall. The fall cancer started in sharing your organs. The summer of not knowing. The spring of oblivion larger and deeper than the lake you took us to.

Seasons, or Grief Underwater

        Chaotic motion can never

be predicted. You can’t right past wrongs
      and I can’t forget them.
 
I never could have predicted the
        hammer. The nail. The soft kiss
 
and the gutting. To be under a magnifying
        glass in July.

A Sound of Silence

When we were friends, you showed me the
world through a kaleidoscope. Now, even stained glass is

dull. I smudge my glasses & pretend I haven’t been 
lonely & longing for months.

&

desire only kills morals 

Laurel Reynolds

Books

Selected work