brooke

brooke Apr 2017

right after we reach that point where for the first month all I want to do
is explain the same things over and over to you, whether it be the things
you said last week or the things you said just today, or the way I feel
about you in fifteen different languages (with the first 13 still being English)
and that 34% of the time the water will be too hot and I will come
on too strong and all of my poems will be these drawling confessions
of love, because I do, I love. And it will never be that I fall in love easy
but more that I see the wounds in others, their quick tempers and shortages, the vices they pull from their back pockets when
dead friends come alive in conversations
the night he died he--

The truth is, before you date me--
the first forty-seven dinner places
will likely be Subway and Chiles
I won't eat onions in front of you
and if my carpets aren't vacuumed
you're not coming over.

the truth is
I spend a lot of money
on things I shouldn't and
will always opt for breakfast foods
or a jar of peanut butter over a
meal, furiously switch through
harmonies to Traveling Soldier by
the Dixie Chicks

the truth is

the truth is.

These are only guidelines and I am more predictable. My fantasies include meeting your family,
cooking with your mother
and several disjointed memories
strung together in this big awkward conglomeration of
sensations and fabrics, the erratic heartbeat of
every subway pigeon in New York
who lies to itself about it's
own desensitization
but the trains still rattle
their bones and the quick winds
still tear through their feathers
and each day manages to feel
like sets of ten minutes that
each last a year.

(c) Brooke Otto 2016(7)

This was written on May 10th of last year.

brooke Apr 2017

16/30 (new lungs)

i think it's time i start breathing--
this roof, i've shot a hundred holes
to accommodate the rain-fall,
i'm catching the run-off on purpose
chalk it up to sentimentality,
I have three yellow roses pressed
between pages of the first book i read to
him, conversation hearts from a superbowl
party, a pair of movie photos tucked away--

I've been growing new lungs,
exercising the right to expand, i cannot
hold my breath for others, cannot decrease and
hope for new foliage, shrink back and hope for
the steps to be taken, i cannot stop reading the
dictionary or using words as if they aren't a
saving grace,

i can't deny the things i've done, the smoke i've
inhaled, the past month is set in stone, but I
can't close myself off like i've done before
I can't go back to hopin' someone will crack
me like a safe, venture to know the things I
want discovered, that's been done and proven

we've heard the sayings about Rome,
about walking before running,
was in such a hurry to be there
wherever there was,
but i've got to be here
I stopped documenting
and tried for experiencing
figured if it needed to be
remembered, it just
would.

so these new lungs need
good practice and I'll
breathe my best.

(c)Brooke Otto 2017

brooke Apr 2017

15/30 (ghosts we no longer haunt)

i haunt the things that
don't exist--the things
that could have been,
i've done it for as long
as i can remember,

valued memories beyond
the moment--so i can go back
to haunt them too,

sometimes it keeps me awake--
like my head is an engine and
my thoughts the spark that push the piston

people tell you to stop like its not something
you've lived with, a habit you can break with
21 tries, i'm not trying to let my mistakes run
my life but my conscience ain't for **** right now--

these ghosts we no longer haunt--
are they things we just forget?
I've never wanted to lie for
so long that it becomes truth,
to sleep with someone else to
take away the pain, learn to
replace someone when the
going gets rough, I do not
want these half-assed remedies--
i may haunt memories but they
don't
haunt
me.

(c) Brooke Otto 2017

brooke Apr 2017

14/30 (love and other plagues)

we like to compare scars
**** at eachothers bullet wounds
searching for the exit,
thinking ourselves doctors and holy men,

but we're only children with scapels
sharp wits for play things, asking
the other to lift their shirts, fold up their
skirts,
show us what we don't understand,
plagued by the notion of going it alone
faking it all the same,

(c) Brooke Otto 2017

didn't like this one--didn't quiet agree with the title.

brooke Apr 2017

13/30 (the wolf at my throat)

have you heard that animals
come in more than one form,
not just covered in fur or lined
in scales, in shirts and jeans
they walk, talk and conjugate

have you heard that diseases
are more than just viruses, they
have names like thomas, luke, jeff,
scribbled in notebooks, sipped through
cocktail straws,

this is no friendly cherokee parable
spoken in elderflower and feathery
folklore,
the wolves are here and have always
been, you know they rarely come in ones,
curtailing escape, the abridged version of
all-them-who-called-wolf because we don't
cry wolf, we seek wolf.

speak wolf.
so surprised to have them at our throats
when we have been no angels--
neither devils
just another injured animal
trying to make peace.

(c) Brooke Otto 2017

been a little behind on the prompts.

brooke Apr 2017

what, brooke?

i finally told him
I want to try.
with you.
I want to try, with you.
I want to be with you.
I want to be with you.
because it's been there
at the forefront of everything
Waiting to be said
okay. okay. like a sigh--
I had been trying all night
From the moment he threatened
To drive away, standing insolently
In front of his headlights--
but he was quiet and
all i could do was smile
and say, but that's not
enough anymore, is it?
no, it's not.
but I know why it isn't,
and why this poem is
short with so very
few
words.
because decisions are
yes or no, but some yes'
are too
late and
some no's
follow in suit.

(c) Brooke Otto 2017

was too late.

brooke Apr 2017

12/30 (born a *******)

when mama left california--

when mama's leave with
their children, does a part
of him go with us,

I've spent a lot of time
looking for Leonard in
the kindred spirits of
other men,

men with bodies like the
damp forest, mulch and
peat moss,

what is a father and what is
a man, do they yell, do they
scream,  should he have when
she left, but

                 I was born a *******, left a *******
                  asking for someone to convince me
                  that girls like me can be whole--that
                  they don't need any help because i've
                  never had it anyway.

                  when mama left california, she said so.

                  don't need no help, she whispered.
                  don't need no help, I mimick.

(c) Brooke Otto 2017

sorry this one is late.