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brooke Aug 2013
remember when i
taped a hundred
pink streamers to
your ceiling? A giant
craft store heart
dangling from the
middle and when
your mom asked

when are you gonna take that down?

you smiled and asked
why you'd ever need to.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2013
He says
you have a pretty
voice and I find my-
self singing just to
see if I actually do.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2013
At least you're
good at something
really good at something
at least you have something
to your name.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2014
I'll stop loving
you if you ask
me to.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
brooke Nov 2013
i
keep
hoping
you'll
talk
to
me
first


                     you're
                     just
                     a
                    ghost


what
about
endings
do
I
not
understand
?


                          how
                          done
                          with
                          me
                          are
                          you?


i
made
everything
abundantly
clear
to
everyone
but
myself.
(C) Brooke Otto 2013

well, whatever.
brooke Dec 2012
I do not know
how to forgive
them, though
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2014
please
say you
forgive me
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Dec 2014
I'd like to
think that
my smile
unbuttons
your pride
because you
sure unzip
mine.
I've rewritten this so many times.

(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Mar 2012
I hate to see the life
you've created without me
because I don't think I've
created one without you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2014
you're living on top of
the limelight, because I
doubt it's possible for you
to live under it


I'm banging my knees
on my desk every time
I stand up.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

another on acceptance.
brooke Nov 2012
anything could be home
anyone could be home
the problem is that
you can't find comfort
in people, they're
not good for that.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2014
All men are disgusting
(all men aren't disgusting)

I'm buying bananas at the store
trying to find green ones because
I hate ripe fruit (ironic) and an old
man with his wife stops to stare at
my legs. I want to break every banana on the
stand but that would probably turn him on.
Remember Derek? Who told me to *******
when I wouldn't go to the movies with him
you're like every other girl in this town
Well, yeah, maybe, but not every other
girl wants to slam your face into the
cash register at City Market (or maybe they do)
Remember Ty, who called me a ***** for not
wanting to bake thc butter into my brownies
I sincerely hope you overdose on orange juice, love brooke.
I wouldn't call it homicidal, but I want to slash your tires
and ram into your bumper four (or seven) times but my
insurance probably would not cover that.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

bear with me while I go in a different poetic direction for a little while.
brooke Sep 2017
this must be the place


my father put bread inside
the ceramic jar filled with
muscovado in the kitchen,
where my tiny hands splayed
out and stuck to the counters

it'll soften it, he says

for his lack of affection
I took what I could get
i must have soaked in
Darjeeling for years
an unrefined sugar cube
too bonded to dissolve
like all children that
want from their fathers--

I suppose.

a little girl peeking
over the tile, wondering
what other types of things
bread could make soft--
her
maybe.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Dec 2013
i am so
like a
fistful of
rice dropped
on the hard
wood floors
you could
never gather
all of me, even
find pieces next
year.
(c) Brooke Otto 2013
brooke Nov 2013
i still find it strange
(like most others) that
someone so fam
                                         iliar can
suddenly, without much thou   ght
become entirely foreign within an
hour          or
two and then as a couple weeks
go by there is nothing more than
footprints where we used to
                      stand  

side     by     side
and then not
even  
       that
(c)Brooke Otto 2013
brooke Mar 2012
we had ***.
you said
'thanks for the experience'
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2017
I am convinced he must be
like my dad,
who works next
to the wasps and they
are not at all unsettled by
his presence,
he gently blows them away
when they settle near his knuckles--

yes, you must be like him
because my father is the only
man I know who speaks to
hummingbirds and knows
just about anything you'd
need to know about jet planes
or rifles,

he's hanging the welcome sign
talking about the grass out back
loving me despite how little
affection i've shown him growing
up, still navigates around
fears, discrepancies and
every decision I never made

he must be like you
you must be like him
packing in church
carrying drilled pennies
and two dollar bills,
i dunno
i dunno.
brooke Mar 2016
underneath the nylon blanket I got the
impression that your hands were
these beautiful, shadowy, cecropia moths
reticent with their intentions, while they sat
idly on your ribcage before seeking out warmer
bases. My back, my thigh, my hipbone that wasn't
connected
, you whispered.

You smell like cologne and beer; warm and perfumey,
faintly sweet.  I wonder if I'm still tipsy, that was over an hour ago,
over an hour ago when I had to focus on my words
to make sure they came out in pieces and not viscous liquids
thick and sugary. I imagined gems hanging from my lips,
gems hanging from my lips and letters bubbling past
them.

you keep pulling down my shirt like a curtain, derisive of your
own actions, only to find that you have yet to prove yourself
and rock my thigh into yours which was perhaps too zealous.
Too zealous, I think, nonetheless quickened by your thumb
brushing the underwire of my bra.  I laugh because we are far
too juvenile. Here I am protecting the sanctity found in patience
and yet you've evaded the rules.

all this touching and we haven't even kissed, I say, which wasn't really an invitation, but then we are and i am breathing all of you
in sweet staccato breaths, tugging at your skin and still doing the
guesswork, still trying to pin down your wings like a true lepidopterist
all the while knowing that butterflies on cork-boards are usually
dead.
That last bit was surprising to me, too.
is this poem done? who knows.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016
brooke May 2017
they're asking the
wrong questions
a lot of meaningless
interactions, more
i think, rolling cherry
pits between my
fingers, more
prattling on about
stupid things I
don't care about
you just need a good ****
she says, so blase, as if being
touched by anyone else, kissed
by a stranger would be any better

and i think about how I don't
how I just need a good night's
sleep, a good cry in between
library stacks or a pair of arms
I know too well,
how i only want his
his shoulder, his breath,
how lucky for him that
I can't stand the thought
of anyone else, how i've
tried but leave my phone
at home, ringer at full volume
'cause i know it won't be for
me

you just need a good ****
she repeats, dropping an
orange slice in a pint of blue moon
I can't do that,  I say, won't do that
the ice in my water is melting
that's not who i am.  she
interrupts, sure it is.

but i know better.
they're asking the
wrong questions
saying the dumbest
things, and I have
to believe that they are
wrong, i can't be
the only one who
wants just one
just one person
just one touch
just
one.
(c) brooke otto 2017


written to Between Cities by Donovan Woods.

people say the dumbest things.
i really don't like this poem.
brooke Apr 2014
the flint
and the
fire, all
together
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
brooke May 2013
i am afraid i have wounded
him in a remarkable sort
of way, in a way no person
could fix
(c) Brooke Otto

i don't know how i didn't see this.
brooke May 2013
a while back you
sent me a song by
The Avett Brothers
and oh, Chris, how
I tried to take you
in. I tried to take
you in. I tried to
take you in.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2013
Chris, why do wounds itch
when they're healing? and
you were in the middle of
something, drawing or playing
a game, and you kind of
looked at me sideways
and did that thing with
your lips.

Well what do you expect?
It has new skin  
growing over it.


and you must have went
back to what you were doing
because I thought it all to be very
prophetic somehow.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2013
There's an old
photo I have
of you from
your old house
nothing but
your shadow
as you played
the piano

plink
plink

plink
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
is my body a
god-given right
is my spirit more
beautiful? I would
rather be seen for
my contents than
my container.
(c) Brooke Otto

programmed.
brooke Dec 2012
Would you believe it
if I told you I used to
watch him sleep, and
in the mornings I would
rub the tile outside the
door so it would be warm
and although I felt sick
I cradled his head in my
lap on the way home
I actually felt better after
we slept on the air mattress
but am I to assume that
that was a false happiness?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2017
i once asked him
if he still loved her
and he said I'd hope not

i think that we
misconstrue open
wounds for old feelings,
for love,

that it is harder to let go
of the things that hurt
where we told ourselves
it was okay to stay,
to bed down and bunk
that we were safe,

the truth of the matter is
that none of us like to roam
and every country, every
campsite is as beautiful as
home, where we shared
too much and hid nothing
because what greater freedom
than to bare all,

it is safe to say i know the outside
of what love looks like, like skimming
pages or folding sheets-- not really using
the thing,

not really using the thing.

i don't think this is what it is,
all grit and open blisters,
maybe that is where it starts
before anything can begin


i'd hope so.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Sep 2013
at the hartford house
you sat on the end of
my bed and kept to
yourself.

When you left I messaged
you to tell you I had wanted
to kiss you and back to back
you said

Are you sure?
*well you should have.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
I see how the little things
become mediocre staples
quite discreetly
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2014
cody said;
*to be completely honest, you
seem guarded at the idea of letting
a guy get close to you again. It's not
a bad thing at all, it's just once you do
let a guy in for real you're going to be
ridiculously committed to him
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
brooke May 2013
to be honest I am
sorry I ever shared
my soul with those
who never wanted
it in the first place.
(c) Brooke Otto


here brooke, i never really cared about anything you ever told me after all.
brooke May 2017
when he comes I hope i'm ready
I hope by then i have healed over
that my scars are just midribs and
my backbone the strongest flower
stem he's laid eyes on--

that i won't be the prettiest thing he's
ever seen but I might be the brightest
because maybe he'll see me from miles
out or maybe i'll be the dimmest glow,
maybe I will be the brick beneath a sheath of
Virginia creeper,  and he will have to pull
apart the vines to see,

i am not trying to hide I will say,
i've just been still for so long, i stopped
waiting, I was done hoping, i'd accepted
that you might not show up but lord
i am so grateful you did--

and maybe the rain will fall and
i'll stop being hidden without trying
and all the moments I laid in the tub
with the hot water running over me
will not seem so strange and I will
not shame myself for crying
so often.
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1637059/when/
rewrote an old poem.

written to "I do" by susie suh.  

I've done so much in the past month, i haven't slowed down for even a split second. How do you do it guys? when words don't work at all. when actions don't either?
brooke Aug 2013
you said so many times
that you would love me
for the rest of your life
and only now do I
realize you may
have understood
that love isn't
confined to
a relationship
it just lasts.
(c) Brooke Otto

This realization was sudden and very painful.
brooke Aug 2013
My first love was not a first love
because the first thing he was interested in
was being around me with his shirt off so
I could admire how toned he was for a
freshman.

He chose my best friend over me first
and I let him in anyway, he called me a
**** fiend and I took that as a compliment
even though i had no idea what I was doing.

He told me, Brooke, when people love each other
they have ***, and I knew that part of that was true
that I wanted to equate love with making love because
why else would it be called that? But he wasn't my first love
and the first thing he was interested in was eating me out.

Fifteen year olds are too dumb to make any rational decisions
when they have overbearing honey-tongued devils in their lives.
I was so scared but I did want to, so he planned it out and he had
me on bare mattress in his room in broad daylight, no sheets, no blankets
and my socks were still on, I wasn't even sweaty and my hair stayed perfect.
He wasn't my first love because the first thing he thought of was grabbing my
breast under the elementary school awning.

We had no ****, no privacy, no rules. And I gave it to him willingly even though
I was paralyzed right down to my toenails, a cold highway of veins in my jar of
jelly muscle, the mornings were hot and every time he laid on me I felt like a
shower was the only cure to feeling this *****, should I FEEL this d i r t y?

My morals were rupturing like aneurisms, and everyone thought it was
so ridiculous that I was breaking down under their sunlight, burning up
under their words? It shouldn't matter, this much, brooke. It SHOULD NOT
matter this much. His dad, drove me to the jiu jitsu tournament and told me
he didn't understand why my dad thought it was so necessary to keep me
safe why he shouldn't be buying his son condoms because this is
what
teenagers
do.

My incessant nagging drove him away and I have thought this to be my
fault. This was not my fault.  

My second love may have been my first love.
because the first thing he was interested in was waiting
till our friendship bloomed and then I could come over to his house.

He didn't write off his feelings for me when I said I needed time. And maybe
he did go back to his ex, but I needed time and he gave me time. I wasn't sure
if I loved him but I kissed him and the first time he touched me he told me
to ask him to, to make sure it was okay.

I remember what I was wearing, acid wash shorts and a tanktop
that apparently saved darfur.  His breath was warm and the evening was dim
but his desk-light shone over our legs and his worn skinny jeans.

He told me, Brooke, all I want to do is make you breakfast. And I read
that in his diary. And my second love was my first love because the first
thing he wanted to do was draw me while I slept. He did.

Seventeen year olds are swept away easily and refuse to work
on old feelings. They are damaged because of their first loves who
weren't first loves and are afraid to let go because there will never
be anyone better than this.  My second love was my first
love because he never held *** over my head like a trophy
and we rolled over each other in the sheets and my parents
were never worried.

We had no ****, we had privacy, we had rules. I was not scared
after I realized there were no threats. I thawed and was sweet like
a ripe strawberry. He said he loved me and I felt clean, sweaty but
there was no need for a shower, my hair was always frizzy and he
laughed about it.

my morals were tall mortar walls. And I told him there were rules
for wanting to be with me, and my walls loomed over him. He tried and promised
but we were both fools.  I made mistakes twice over and took advantage of his love.

my incessant nagging, indecision, and rudeness drove him away. This was my fault.
This was all of our faults.
(c) Brooke Otto

This is so cliche it hurts.   I've been increasingly inspired by slam poetry. I actually don't like long poems, but the idea of reading it out loud is why I wanted to give it a try.  Sorry if there are any typos.
brooke Jul 2012
there's a hot winter in my ears that
snows in my body
my chest crunches with ice and it all melts in my eyes
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 18
I don’t think you understand —

Of course I  want to travel—

But I want to do it in Moab
where the mountains crumble and
Rebuild in a day, and the red dust is
Alive with the spirit of a child
leading me here and there
the land marked by ornate tree lizards who
praise the lord

And when I lay down for the night
in the streets of Pakistan, the birds
singing softly in Punjabi, the crisp white of
snowdrops sprouting between my fingers
Not a soul will seek to harm me—
Nor the sun to scorch me,

When I drink from the Atlantic and am sustained—
When its waters take me in,
down to the den of leviathan
where the seabed gave up its dead long ago
And I breathe in the deep green algae,
Anglers like stars in the night

My fingers in the mouth of a lion
pulling nesting stellulas from their jaws—
I want to travel then—

In a world that knows me.

A world that knows me.
brooke Aug 2013
tangible it would
be an autumn leaf
blown out of the street
yet to travel another
day. Because the
wind, so kind,
just happens
to care.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jun 2017
when they ask me
why I believe-- i have
no facts, i have no
witness other than
myself, hardly a
soldier but still
in the field of
my own trenches
and we never know
when the allies move
when we are so lost
in the forests, the brush,
the barns at midnight
with no sleep
i have lost hope more
times than i can count
more times than a fighter
should
unable to see the work
being done for a war
i hardly participate in
by others and leaders
without titles all
vessels unrelenting
and then suddenly
there is change and
ground has been made
has been taken
and I have been made
such a fool, such a faithless
thing, abandoning my post
so often but he
still comes for

me.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017

in the sheds and
barns, unrecognizable
he finds

me.
brooke Sep 2013
will you give
yourself easily
to the next girl?

Was waiting for
me just a one time
thing.
(c)Brooke Otto

It's raining.
brooke Jun 2017
**** it, should stop even trying to
be the good guy

but that's not true,
because if it's not me
it will be someone else
twice as lovely with a
better heart probably,
the way i wanted to
be or thought i could be

that's not true,
you're too good, a little rusted
salvaged from a bunker in penrose
but you shine up real nice,
you're kinda pretty
i said and you smiled
like you used to,
but *that's
true

you're too beautiful
to be the villain
have you seen the
gems they dredge up
from the earth?
covered in soot and grime,
a thousand years of soil
they don't sell for much
but lord if they ain't
the most gorgeous
things you ever seen
dandelion yellow
pine green,
the kind of
oranges you wouldn't imagine

and if i could ever make
you believe a single thing
again it'd be that you're
some kind of sunday-morning
leave the weeds for another day
kinda feel, sweet corn and barley
Rest my head on the window and
let
Just
*let
brooke Apr 2016
When Chaz broke up with me I was
painting the old room on Hartford,--
this rich prussian blue--in the middle
of an indian summer, thick solvent fumes
shimmering outside the windows.  And the
sweat didn't leave your body, just dewed up
on your skin in a thousand glittering beads--

When he called, I walked to the playground and
began  to internalize the heat in anticipation--
the thick chunks of ochre tanbark and red-hot tar in the
playpit--sat on the edge of a scorching step and said things like
no, really, I'm okay.
of course not, I'm fine

When he hung up, i only remember the true indifference to the
mothers and their startled babies, in awe of the spectacle
of beings other than themselves crying--avoiding the strange
girl dissolving on the swings, a sweaty, positively remorseful thing,
baking in a pair of caked shorts.

When my parents come to find me a half-day later, I am a dried up husk, salty and shriveled from sunburn
--Sitting in the same place--
you vow this will never happen--that this pain, this hurt--will never touch you again.  It's too much to say that that day you broke, at most, you cracked down the side, a piece of drift wood hanging onto its branches
by a few sinewy fibers,
sewed yourself up with moss, with steel and rice paper--hoped no one
could see through you, enough holes for catacombs, fissures from here-to-there, across the state of i-never-thought-this-kind-of-heartbreak-was-possible--

at best, slightly used, worn once, okay condition. 19.99.

And you've been keeping your distance since you were fifteen,
where people deflect off a touch, bounce off your atmosphere--
so now, people come into your orbit and your gravity is thrown, when
he reaches for you all you see is the way it ends a year from now, a loss
you've already counted when his hands are threaded into your cerebellum--when he's beginning to push apart your ribs to know
you a little better, when your spine is not just a column of bones anymore but a grecian pillar, your body is not a cavity but a temple,
when he starts to wonder about what it might feel like to love you--

you only know a couple ways to keep men grounded,
maybe here, maybe there, maybe close.  You're so scared.

You're so scared.

and men don't like timid women
men don't like women that need time
he calls you cold and you say yeah, maybe. Yeah, Maybe.
How else should you be? How can you be warm?

I am trying to be less of a tomb, turn my insides out and
show you i am the warmest I have ever been, that if I am
to be pitted with holes then they are sweet and I am full of
honey--that where you were hurt I am hurt too--that I am
healing just the same, hoping for the best,

whispering


get to know me

get to know me.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016.

if you want to hear me:

https://soundcloud.com/brooke-otto-597708624/ifyoureadanyreadthis/s-0Cgpa
brooke Sep 2012
I'm sure he exists
i mean,
another like you
but for now you
are the only one
a strip of light on
the carpet in my
room, 30 minutes
away on a good
day without much
traffic and i'm
entirely horrified
by how confused
I am, my head is
all mist and tangled
string, my nose burns
with all the tears i
could cry but won't
because I already
have
most of all there are
parts of me screaming
to be acknowledged, to
let go of a hundred
things and welcome
something new but
i don't know how
i'm telling you i
don't know how and
nothing good comes
for girls like me who
are the way they are
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
I am       s c a r e d
to
    
              
                                    
                              j
                                ­u
                                    m
                         ­               p


                              
                      there is nothing to land on
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2013
I've been trying to
tell you there's a difference
there's a difference, i promise
there's a difference
unconditional still meant
the same thing don't listen
to all the popular phrases
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2012
He is not unlike Nosferatu, alone in
company, but company nonetheless
better to be alone in numbers than none at all
He will use honey and sugar, the sunlight will assume kingdom on
his face and accede a high place in your heart, you will
love him
and so, above all else he will be
normal


but he is a ghoul, a rust upon your better
half and all your fruits will lay,
white

Il te détruira.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2013
I want to be beautiful
like that, a thrifted soprano
note, high above the choir
a dipping lilt that will
hush
hush
she blooms
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2014
i find myself waiting
for this happiness to
be brief, for a kick in
the a-frame, and my
legs snap together,
falling over like a
knocked easel
but I don't want
to live in fear of
fear, because I'm
just waiting to be
scared of something.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

does that make sense?
brooke Apr 2013
the words are allpilingupagain
I andi'm not sure he understands
how much talking saved me from
myself but he stopped and now the
words are everywhere, in my chest
and in my hair anddrainingfrom
my fingertips, with no where else
to go and they never leave through
tears, the thing that leaves the most
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2014
maybe you
take the brunt
of the storm,
after all, there
is only one set
of footprints
behind me
and the wind
I feel may only
be what peeks
through your
fingertips.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Apr 2013
do you think that
the reason we move
along is because we
have learned all
that there is to
learn about
that person
and that
the people
who we end up
with are the ones
we never stop every day
the sun catches the reds
the browns, the golden
hues in their hair and
we say, I have not
truly known you,
yet.
(c) Brooke Otto
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