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brooke Jul 2017
lately when it rains

and it pulls at all
the earth, humid and
oaky,

i wonder if it brings
the same out in me,

summer sweat, the
whos and wheres
buried down deep.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Feb 2014
there are a lot
of flesh memories
(one that makes
me feel like a sea
anemone) but in
particular, the last
night we were together
and you told me to make
a video of myself to take
with you, but instead I
downloaded songs to
your itunes and just
now, secretly, I hoped
that you still had them
especially that one
by My Brightest Diamond
singing about how she has
never loved someone they
way I loved you.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Mar 2013
I remember a
hundred nights
in your apple room
beneath ramen kisses
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2014
in this dream I stood at
the gated entrance to the
way we used to be,  a
green trellis shaped like
a star and the old house
where we were so often
was boarded up. I wanted
to call and ask you to lunch
but we had just been on the
biggest journey and it occurred
to me that you needed to rest
so I stood at that entrance until
the dream
ended
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

surreal.
brooke Sep 2013
your old habits
die hard within
me.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2014
your dad went grey
while I was away, you
grew the brown beard
he lost, your dad went
grey while I was away,
you grew the brown
beard he lost.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Sep 2013
i have mistaken
too many things
for sin, and I
shoved them
blatantly in
your face,
my lack
of knowledge
led me astray
(c) Brooke Otto


****, man.
brooke May 2014
if you've ever done
3 sets of lat pulldowns
your hands cramp up
by the end and are freckled
red. You flex them awkwardly,
all ten fingers bent into little
claws around the bar, and the
skin feels tight as if you were
slipping your bones into a glove
too small.

but it doesn't last long.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jan 2013
A little girl
inside of me
cannot make
friends and
she still hides
now and then
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
each perfume
reminds me of
a time passed.
truly, i just want
to live in the present.
(c) Brooke Otto

I'm tired of living in old scents and photographs.
brooke Apr 2016
i drove an hour and thirty minutes
to drop a loaf of banana bread off at
your house and I walked up to the
door talking to myself like a mad-man
it's a  m i r a c l e  you didn't hear me--
saw your truck in the lot but didn't think
much of it, (you were supposed to be at work)

but then you were there--
with those eyes that can get so
wide as if I am the darkest thing
in the room and you need  a l l
the light you can get to take me in,
filling up the doorway with those
b  r  o  a  d  shoulders that sometimes
remind me of the horizon, like the whole
sky has settled across the slopes
of your body and branches
off to the sides, everything
goes on for miles like i'm seeing
something so far off--with that frame of yours
that always seems to pour itself into empty spaces--
you could be standing in the middle
of a whitewashed prairie and the fields
would still gently wrap around your
hands, fold you up in the dirt and
you'd still be the arrowhead i'd find--
and I just mutter jesus christ because you've made
me jump, but still. We haven't seen each other in two
weeks and all I can manage is a jesus christ, you scared me.

you disappear into your room and i'm thinking;
  "do     I     set     this     here     and     go?"  
so I take my time unwrapping the bread, crinkling the
bag between my fingers and stuffing the note beneath  
the sweet tea that I brought because it's been sitting in my fridge waiting for you--but you still haven't come back out so I head for the door, breathing slowly and chewing a hole through my lip.

you're already leaving? You've materialized on the couch with a rifle jammed between your knees, staring out at me past the rod you've got
poised at the muzzle.  I have the door open with the wind blowing in
these soft flakes that have started on a lazy drift, skittering in and collecting around my boots--I have one hand on the door **** and I can hear you running that tiny square of fabric through the chamber, fixated
on the barrel and briefly meeting my eyes.
Waiting for me to say something,
it's a split second--barely any time at all--
I think about how that navy blue shirt looks good on you,
looks like those cloudy ocean waves and you are the sand
riddled sea foam pulsing in and out--

I didn't know if you'd want me to stay, I whisper sheepishly. But I close the door and step back inside.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

I might come back to this one.
brooke Apr 2014
up here the wind blows with fists
never felt it this heavy, so heavy
the car tips and I jostle in my seat
sounds like thick palms slamming
against the windows and I look out
towards the mountains where a line
of thin grey cloud settles across the hills.
we are in a valley and the wind hurls
itself down the crests and heaves into
the middle of town with it's fat belly,
rushing in plumes up my skirt and
lifting my hair in tendrils, all tendrils
always tendrils.

it blows me away.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jun 2014
no, around him I want
to feel like a peony, like
i'm sinking my fingers into
barrels of sesame seeds, like
i'm doing everything right
when I fail a test, there is
nothing about him that
i need to fix, that in the
night i can fill up the
bed and in the morning
he'll still be there.

I want to feel like I'm doing something right.
I want to feel like I'm doing something right.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Aug 2013
I wish I were
the red dirt
outside my
window who
takes the rain
in stride and
drinks heartily.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
Those things used to
set me apart, now to
set me alone. I know
it's worth it to be safe
but God, I'd really love
some company.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2016
Half of the time we are silent.




I see the tip of your tattoo--the head of an eagle
at the nape of your neck below the delicate loops of a
thin silver chain -
and the thing about skin is that is whispers and pleads
to be seen or stung or washed

to be photographed, of course
mountains and valley exist on more
than one visceral plain, the earth comes
on more than one planet, one grain, we know.

That scientific studies show water to seek
the lowest point,
the lilac crest, the thoraclumbor fascia
(are we water? are you water? am I water?)
a percentage of it is water and the rest is
heart, the rest is soul

go stand beneath the water
and take your shirt off, take
your shirt off, gentle so that
the muscle doesn't stir, so
that you feel every inch of
cloth that doesn't belong
so that you don't see me
behind the lens
so that I don't
ruin what
good can
come of
being
naked.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

I didn't want to let this sit in my head for too long lest it become drawn out and wordy
brooke Sep 2013
after work you
stood by my car
in the fade of a
dim glaucous
morning with
black cut off
gloves, did I
want to spend
the day with
you?

I can feel the
fibers of your
black pea coat
on my cheek,

still.
(c) Brooke Otto

old memories.
brooke Jan 2014
how do you love yourself
how do you love
how do you
how do
how
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke May 2013
perhaps my feet will
have another chance
to lie by a third in the
dim lit room and maybe
just maybe, oh god,

maybe

I will be able to bare
my spirit again and
they will know to
handle it carefully.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2016
there's a ringing in my ears that
sounds like the feed trucks roaring down 50
and  broken country music coming through
an ancient stereo, sounds like the way your
thick palms look when they pull a cap off a Coors
bottle, and that side eye you give, why do you keep looking at me like that?

Like what? As if my looks were incendiary glares and not photographs, I'm only taking you in, not taking you out. Like what? Hasn't anyone ever traced your lips or wondered if God built you out of brick? Laid silk over your harsh corners and sanded you down with a smile--why am I looking at you like that?

sounds like I put myself here and effectively took myself
out, sounds like you're one of kind and so different
and i've never felt this way
but I've heard all of those--

he's not waiting but i am, maybe for some kind of epiphany,
some kind of insurgent thought--an outpouring of light in the
rooms he thinks are lit, i wish I could light candles down his
tenebrous hallways, hang lanterns in the crook of his elbow,
make sure that the shadows only ever follow at a distance
but I can't assuage the feelings you haven't found, the fleeting
thoughts you ignore, I can't smelt the ore from your blood or
even pull a
splinter from
your palm.

He told me once he was in no hurry, no rush. But I've felt like i'm waiting on him, how strange, he'd probably say. Probably tell me
at least once more how much sense I don't make--but I tell myself that only a few people beat for me, run the tracks at the same speed--
that my explanations are enough for every other part of myself
and trying to explain that I am many, that I hang fire and break beds with prayer is like trying to describe colors;
warm, but not bright. Rich, hearty, elegant. -- Untitled. 1994. Oil on canvas.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016


Written on March 20th.
brooke Jan 2014
there are a couple things I remember in particular;

at the beach when I clumsily tangled my fingers
with yours and you told me to  
get off the freaking train tracks
because you could hear the
speed cars whistling a ways
back, I took one of those
sun-soaked pictures of
you and you said,
can't you feel it?
what's still between
us?
I shuffled beneath
the question and told
you to stand out in
front of me so I could
get yet another photograph
of you in front of the sunset.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Aug 2014
we're down to that
point of the year where
I spend a month filled with
anxiety, wondering if I should
wish you happy birthday or leave
well enough (this really is well enough, right?)
alone. Are you well enough? is this well enough?
Are we well enough? Well enough? Well? Enough?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Aug 2013
i told the person I loved
the most not to read my
poetry, but I have given
this link to two other people
and they never bothered to
read any of it.

what does that say
about me?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2012
find the potential
for love
in everyone
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
What is wrong
with talking to
me? Is there something
wrong with me? is there
something wrong with me?


is there something wrong with me?
(c) Brooke Otto

I can just imagine what people say sometimes.
brooke Aug 2015
men touch me
like auctioneers--
with moist, fleshy hands
sweating for a bite, grazing
my scars with excuses, *******
the succulents on the coffee table
all under the rug with their
dusty presumptions,
hawking beneath
the skylight
with a hunger
for the bedroom
seventyfiveeightyeightyfive
(c) Brooke Otto 2015

i hope this poem sounds as gross as I feel about this
brooke Aug 2012
His friend once told me we
were
in lust

but hayden I've loved you
since I can hardly remember, there was Colorado and then
there was you, any time was a good time to be graced by your presence
I suppose you would think it's scary, to hear these things but
don't you know I would in a heartbeat, in less, in less than there is to be of
a heartbeat, I would

don't you recall all those times where the moment was only
my imagination, of course, but what did I do because you
left, and
"Nah, Dude, A lot of **** has been happening."


And there are some memories not shared,

but
there is
no lust


hayden i've loved you
since I can hardly remember
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2012
I had a dream we
kissed and you ****** the air
out of my lungs, said you were in trouble
oh, but it was a dream, I was in no wrong so
I kissed you again, gave it back
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2013
this heart is
entirely too
fickle for this
body.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2013
whoever tries to
forget you is a
coward.
(c) Brooke Otto 2013

likewise.
brooke Jun 2015
tell god, 'look....words'
really      good       thing
away. trying. h o m e
beneath used face
water wasn't kind
fingers...long nights
life wanted house
head tried, **does
(c) Brooke Otto 2015

hello poetry keeps track of words you use, here are the ones
I have used most, in order.
brooke Feb 2013
there's white ice in my ears
and I've tried to avoid this
pitter-patter palpitation for
so long, but it's here now

it's here now.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
I don't know how to let
go of people, unintentionally
maybe I never learned. I'm
okay for a day or two, week,
tops. I sort of sink into the
corkboard, cheat the air,
clean my room.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
as far as sheep go--
will you find me
soon because I
don't know where
i am and countless
people have discovered
me and they ask their
many questions but
but
but
(c) Brooke Otto


have you ever given someone a look at your inner workings, but they didn't notice?
brooke Apr 2013
I sometimes feel as if
this constant state of
unrest, of I do n-not
understand is here
to stay, because I
do n-not under-
stand, but do I
need to?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2013
She whispered into
his spiral notebook
in the empty class
shrill pencil marks
and then she called
across the table, hey
kid
hey kid

but that wasn't my name
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
You made your
decision and that
deal never included
me.
(c) Brooke Otto


I cannot be held accountable for your decisions. It's not my fault if you chose that life over me.
brooke Oct 2013
one of the first
times we met
you stood on
the edge of
a roof and I
think you
are still






there.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Dec 2012
I cannot get rid of
the things people
have said anymore
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2014
when Helen tried to
commit suicide I didn't
know until she told me
at the Oklahoma! premier
when I said I hadn't seen
her in so long and she
casually stuffed her
hands in her pockets
and said Well, yeah,
I tried to **** myself
and was in a place

so I took her face
between my palms
and kissed her forehead
which was out of character
for me, back then, but I wanted
to pull the black out of her brain
with my lips.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014


I miss her and we weren't even great friends.
brooke Dec 2012
My hair was once all aquarelle
and peony, I wondered who

painted me
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
I once had an affinity
for apple butter and
slices of roast beef.
Everything in the
world has always
mattered to me,
so yeah, I have
been stressed
since birth.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
my Christianity was imperfect
and he hated me for not being
willing to break from it.
but i'm not sorry
that I love
God.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2014
I hope she has my hair
I hope she has my hair
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
brooke Sep 2013
YOUR
NAME
IS
EVERYWHERE
EVERYHERE
EVERYTHERE.
(c) Brooke Otto

y'all know what I'm feeling.
brooke Feb 2014
it's been a
year since
it all went
to ****.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Mar 2012
I fall in love with faces
down cliffs, down jagged seaside heights
strewn on the rocks, sunbathing on jawlines
pulled taut in sharp angles that cut my fingers
have you ever fantasized about the way
his lips would fall op en?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2014
those aren't dreams, those are goals*
I stopped using that puny voice
and hiding behind the avocados
in my cobb salad. and who are
you to to define the space between
my fingers, the gaps between my
teeth? Dear Wyatt, feel honored
because for a moment you breathed
my dreams.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.


he doesn't define you.
brooke Mar 2016
you're so brittle
sometimes I feel stronger than that
but you make me seem like some
stained glass window in the belltower
of a church, you don't want to touch me
for the sake of a metaphor you heard once--
but I won't collect dust on your mantle
to satisfy your mirror tropes and sweet,
sweet, nothings.

that's exactly what they are, right? more than
once i've peeled back the ***** of a wound just
to make a point, to emphasize a passion, only to be met
with *is that any way to live?
As if you were accosting me
in the street for the birds in the trees or dirt in the cracks
as if you were saying is that any way to be you?
I don't know, is it? Bare your heart! you tell me,
and I do, I bear it.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016


this was supposed to be longer.
brooke Apr 2016
oh, he came in the back door
in a rush of warm wind
without much entrance, like
when you pull a pan from the
oven--he slides across the rack
and sets up on the stove,  
sat at my table and delicately
touched my hands, not
much precedence for
falling in love, so I
wanted to tell him
everything. But
most of the time he'd
kick up on my knees
spread his calves out
on my thighs and let
Kate curl up in the
middle--I'd just
go silent with the
overwhelming urge
to rub his shins and
smile.


how much of me is the old me
how many girls still feel the hands
of other men? he says move on
and I want to tell him that every
blue ford makes my palms sweat
that I'm only waiting on God,
for his for sure, a divine yes
that even if it's no longer between
the three of us, and it's just him
and some girl named Savannah or Cassie-May
I'll wait as long as I need to for the blessed answer
because he thinks he's pointless and I think he's

beautiful.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016



https://soundcloud.com/brooke-otto-597708624/hes-beautiful/s-WcZgJ
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