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brooke Aug 2013
I'll be blunt;

I'm quartering myself
down to the bare minimum
because I see these pretty girls
everywhere and I tell myself
he'd fall for them, easy. I am
having trouble finding what
anyone could possibly see
in me. My countenance is
quicksand, don't struggle.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 26
Beneath the corymbia citriodora
somewhere in time, an eternally lilac
womb—
the lord knit our ribs together
and blessed the future laid out
above us like a canopy
Every moment strung across
a cotton string, dried orange slices
in the evening sun, twisting to and fro
soft and crystalline, faintly venous—

We weren’t left without the knowledge of
time or the length at which it would stretch
how I might Look for you every day—
have you been looking for me?

Please look for me.



Please look for me
(C) Brooke Otto 2025
F1.
brooke Apr 2013
F1.
if we are all the
1% then what
are we.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2013
it is perhaps most
difficult to want to
see past the mask they
wear.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Dec 2012
have i seen God
and not noticed?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
I was the
strongest
two years
ago, today.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
Do you want to know why
I fall for boys so easily
men so easily
they're men so easily
so easily
and I fall for their pretends
their charms on necklaces
because
I believe everything they say, they
see it in my eyes and my face, they
see all the things I want to hear and
close my eyes, it's sweet mmm mmms
i'm swaying and they're catching, i'm
a butterfly and they're the nets, then i'm a
fish and they're the boats my
eyes are wide and pleading
i thought
i thought
i thought
you were different
my big fish eyes thinking
i'm out of air, i'm tangled in fingers
your words are like burrs, steel traps
catching my feet, teeth snapping around my ankles

It's my fault.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
i'm trying
so hard to
be someone
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
I remember when you
told us your dad abused
you and would lash your
bare skin on the ground
till you bled bones and
hair but he's your hero
now, I wonder if you
remember the lies
that you told, you
are so caught up
in yourself, I
can't stand it.
But they say
the things we
hate in our-
selves we
hate in
others
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
There's still so
much I have
to talk about
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
for those of us that
think our thighs are
disproportional and
pick at the skin under
our arms in the mirror
who feel the weight of
their belly at night but
no---we are immortal
spirits--what is more
beautiful than
that?
(c) Brooke Otto

I reccommend stopping the thought when it starts.
brooke Jul 2013
Will you say

Well done

When I stand before you?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
we're such slaves to neon signs
silent buzzing 7-11's at 2 a.m.
dirtier inside, these nights are
a sort of yellow tint, variation;
high. But the avenues are not
grey graffiti anymore, the rocks
come alive, the city never sleeps
and the streets are all knowing
creatures that take the heat, take
the feet, throb and glide, glide
scuff, panel, catch the curb
the streets are the only ones
who love our
shadows.
(c) Brooke Otto

something a little different.
brooke Feb 2013
Why do you
need so much

proof?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
I have learned
to find my own
love in the things
we used to love
together, I am
cutting the
strings one
by
one
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
February, I'd forgotten you
but I swear I didn't mean to.
(c) Brooke Otto

I felt a little bad for letting this month pass without much thought.
brooke Apr 2013
I hate his sister for
not being a better
sister, for not                                   protecting
him when it mattered
but instead enforcing
the drug induced stupor
he wallowed in for two
months.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2018
well i would
disdain 'gainst
the McCoy name
to prove just how
much quarrel has
to do with what
you mean to me.
(c) Brooke Otto 2018
brooke Jun 2017
what a threat to be erased.

or i will erase you completely

people are strange and

the quota for that is filled--

one time is enough to be

told such an ugly thing.
brooke Apr 2013
Each breath
kept, a warm timbre,
piano chord behind
finches.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2017
i see now how
people are drugs,
but not quite how they
bring out the worst--

and i only have so much
to say about my own choices
just that you can board the
wrong boat and it will take
you, will
take you.

if I could pin point the exact moment
it would be at Louies, the night I chased
your headlights up Frazier, before it turns
into a county road, blinking rapidly
as if that could clear the fuzz,
and you passed a little suburban
going 70 past high meadows--
these are the secrets I hide
the first time being so
drunk the juke box
was kaleidscoping
in and out, and all
I could focus on was
your thin frame across
the room, pool cue in hand
mouthing I love you

oh, but did you?
I think i associated
a few too many with
you coming back, or
having you, but you
were no object, and
I was only confusing--
washing you up on
shore and pulling you
back down deep,

oh, but did you?
I was not doing the opposite, but
the wrong crowd found me in
my weakness, and took me in
as miserable people do--
but if it amounts to
anything I have found
my way to the door
and opened it the
way i do best,

for leaving.
(c) brooke otto 2017

there are a lot of things I'm still afraid to write about.
brooke Sep 2013
can you imagine
God scattering stars
like marbles.
(c) Brooke Otto 2013
brooke Oct 2014
I have always
kissed first,
unzipped first
nuzzled into
your hip bone
first, while you
hid your face
beneath my pillow, first.
the nervousness evades
me with it's wispy fingers
too afraid to be afraid I
live by first come first



serve.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

A real problem.
brooke Jan 2014
I tried to hide the
way my cheeks dropped
I could feel it happening
my entire face landing in
my lap, I didn't consider
that to be losing my virginity


I considered why I felt so hurt
and decided it was because for
three years you were my first
and now you're not anything
and there was nothing and
in the middle of my web
design class, I started to
cry.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.


Yeah.
brooke Nov 2014
the cold came
upon us gently
a hand to sweep
away the summer
and we cleared the
table willingly so
the wood could
reach mahogany
we are all lit up
in candlelight
with lips as
soft and red
as cherries
so smooth
you want
to kiss the
first person
who calls you



beautiful.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Mar 2017
here's a theory:
burn a l l of the
bridges, because
you h a v e before
you've always stayed
to take a beating
but light a match
and walk away
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Jun 2014
i notice that I sign
every diary entry
and hold my legs
in bed, like every
page is a letter
and every leg
is a hand.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jun 2013
my heart
blooms too
late in the
season.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2012
bathed in a salmon glow
only the trees saw us
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2016
the constant
u n y i e l d i n g
search for flint, for
tinder, for a breath
to keep the fire raging
at least glowing, the less--
w a r m. Not just any man
does, but several could, for
a
time
maybe.
we women
with temperamental
baggage, the thoughts
are alive, we fear ourselves
often knowing the flammable
ones-- but we burn anyway.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016
brooke Mar 2017
**** near lost
it all tryin' to be
perfect, upped
my tolerance for
whiskey and now
I just use it when
i'm trying to think
about anything but
you, but i'll be dancin'
with some guy named
Mike and all i can see
is your face reflected
in the windows of
an Antlers hotel
'cause i think that
was the last morning
we were okay.

but lookin' back on it,
i kinda ruined it with a
kiss, we started fighting
when I started fallin' thinking
we needed to be more
but then you said you
loved me and
it wasn't just
me
anymore.

either way--
if there's no use crying
over spilled milk i've
been crying for weeks and
that milk's done and gone
you're spittin venom
and i'm soaking it
up with a dish rag
hopin' it'll turn to
water.
brooke Feb 2013
The light you replaced
in my room has gone

out
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2018
you came in today
and your eyes looked
a little smaller,
and my hair is
a little longer
a little of just
about everything
happened
in me just then
and I remembered
i am not made of
stone.
(c) Brooke Otto 2018

a poem from december.
brooke Nov 2012
Slow motion against dusk
cotton skin, strawberry jaw
steeped in chamomile with
cold water, goosebumps
made of

dew
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2014
oh but we are all
divine in that we
have souls, the
way that fills
my mouth
is stupendous
they say that
your fingertips
can feel nano-scale
wrinkles on a smooth
surface, a new level of
sensitivity not previously
recorded
and I think that is



beautiful.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014


written to Floods by Sir Sly.
brooke May 2014
I glow
without
you.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Sep 2013
did i happen
to you?
did you happen
to me?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
There is still a place
in my heart for you
and I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Dec 2012
she planted secrets once
potted them with fresh
soil and watched them
grow, they were never

weeds
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2012
Do you ever
hear music
in the middle of the night
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
Has anyone ever said
your name like sweet rolls?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2014
Candace said:
all it takes is
one comment
one look in the
mirror, bending
over and feeling a
fold
and i thought
maybe I am her and
she is me. And why
does it take a freaking
army for me to love
my body, in all it's
states and seasons
in the minutes that
it exists. If I am really
something like star
dust, valleys and
mountains then
why can't I
love myself
why can't
I love
my     self
(c)Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Apr 2017
there was once a spider in
my bathroom who wove
a thin globe around itself
for who knows what reason--

I've felt it slide over me,
a thick film, it happens
the way something suddenly
becomes a scar, you're there
for every moment that it
is red and puckered but
one day you find that
your body has taken
aim and fixed itself.

i imagine this is how
people go blind, like
someone has etched filigree
over my lungs and now I
breathe a little easier--
but something has gone
missing, i've always seen
my thoughts as people
and she is no different,
swaddled and taken away

i don't think there is a word
for the process, just the faint
inclination that some things
never existed, or did in another
year, another place, i've always
found myself here,
healed over, maybe
the single tremolo
wavering over my
shoulders, wet out
of a monsoon
usually
box elder leaves
like schools of minnows
diving and plunging

me.

there.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Feb 2013
How many
mistakes do
I grant myself
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2017
it's not as easy to imagine
your fingers as they used
to be, all these men have
had the same scars--

sometimes I see myself
here or there in a smaller body
from months ago, i wonder
about how i fell for you,
the night i was supposed to
go to Salida, up on Bellino
land before the drop off,
not leaving a single poem
out, because I wanted to be
heard and you heard

a grainy memory backlit
in your headlights, all just
crumpled tin cans and
riddled pigeon casings

i have never been good
             at
remembering the bad,
i have taken many deep
breaths, scraped and pulled
the threads from my steering
wheel, rubbed fingernail fissures
from my palms

i hope you come upon
true happiness, revelations
that clear barrel and hit the mark
i hope you find truth in all your anger
that one day you see me and
say
hello.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Mar 2017
when does your family stop being
your family, when you decided they
don't need to know your whereabouts
or who you're kissin',
when mama interferred
for the last time and you
drove the lonely 12 minutes
from his house to yours wishing
you made more sense, wishing
you didn't hurt so much over
every **** thing, so you're
tellin' god no more ultimatums
no more dark drives where you're
cursin and profanin his name

but when do you draw the line
when their home ain't your own
and your house big as empty feels
always warm but filled with you
and you're always far too much
too much thought, too much
water, not enough wood
he says you immediately told
your mom
and i did, which got
me thinkin' about whether families
are comprised of just one, and if
I could be my own, if you need
two, if a dog counts
if there are rules
or just a hand on my back
if God's a good lead then
i'm pushing right back
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Nov 2013
i remember
all your scars
even the ones
on the inside
the ones you
tried to hide
(c) Brooke Otto 2013

i've been avoiding this poem.
brooke May 2016
I wrote a poem about a lie you told
but instead decided to commemorate
you in a better light, probably because of
Paul Harvey's God Made a Farmer,
rememberin' you hoist a bale up at least
three stacks, starin' off into the distance
as you curled baling wire together, looking
like some ****  painting
probably because I know that if you were
out in the woods up behind the hay shed,
I might've mistaken you for a  wounded buck,
all caught up in wire, struggling for whatever's
left of you, with your antlers speared
through clumps of spinney--what a sight.

that even though your heart's in a different place--
albeit a different country altogether, that you are
your own state and nationality, even when your
pride is the biggest plot of land from here to Oklahoma
City--

Your chest reminds me of the helm of a ship, and in my mind
you're still an old tree, gashed and notched with chopped roots
that cleave the earth and ripple above ground in grey knuckles
of european beech wood. You try an' grow into whatever you
can and whoever you can, marriage ain't ****, just as long as I'm happy carved into your branches that I tried to smooth over as
gentle as I could without comin' on too strong--but, darlin', you
never wanted a woman's touch anyway.

Still beautiful as ever--your smile still'd be enough to warm my hands
and I wasn't lying about the way you stand makin' me feel some sort of
way, clinging to your neck and losing feeling in my shoulder
biting your lip hard enough to make you chuckle and memorizing
the specifics of your spine--
so now at night I might be caught thinking about the way you'd feel
if I whispered your name--

but you said it yourself that actions mean more than words, that you probably wouldn't remember something you said two weeks ago so
what's the use in me callin' you a prepossessing man (see also: imposing), I could write more about just your forearms and continue
comparing you to trees and bucks but none of that really matters, I realize. To someone who wants kisses and thighs and just
the outsides, you're fascinated by my spirit sayin'
you ain't ever felt this way, and I wonder why.
Why?

You're not into that kind of thing, but I am that kind of thing.


so, say no to me again.
like you mean it.
keep sayin' it.
keep sayin' it.
you had the answer all along.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
he sat out on the back
porch with the dog and
tugged on her collar.

it ain't your fault for doing
what you know

he said quietly, a swig of
water afterwards. and the
sun went down real slow
like behind the trees casting
purple shadows on his
carhartt boots

she'll not mistake your
nature, she knows what
you are and she loves you,

he said in hushed tones
as she moved through
the kitchen.

she loves you.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Dec 2014
my mom tells me to
be encouraged and I
want to pry my ribs
apart and show her
my whitewashed
insides, how someone
went and took a matte
finish to my skin, I want
to show her the average
diary entry from 9:05 pm
and how I've stopped signing
my name because these letters
never get to God, I want her to
sit in on my conferences with
the empty chairs at work and
listen in on all the phone calls
I don't take, expect my showers
to be two hours long when really
i'm just filling the bathtub over
and over and      over and  
            over                  over
over



over
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
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