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brooke Jan 2013
Fighting to
maintain a
composure

I can't combat
loneliness, alone
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Feb 2015
this is such a soft loneliness
like a kindred spirit, heavy
and without doubt, she hangs
tears from her eyelashes, pairs
of glass ornaments and plants
tall cedars in the valves of her
heart that grow up the walls
and bloom in her throat, through
the whispers, how and why
how and why
how and why
plans to prosper me and not harm me.

(c) Brooke Otto 2015
brooke Jan 2016
i feel like a medley of bloods
of non-favorites and choices
left undecided, all corners and
edges--a heart beating in sheets
of rain where the freshet of my spirit
has ravaged the banks and driven
bones from this ossuary.

that leaves something to be said
about the state of greater things--
of the things i've left frozen that
melt in torrents and wash away
this facade of placidity, this
supposed contingency plan
swept away in a deluge of
all-the-things-i-had-going-for-me
and the worst of it is that i have
not yet been drained, I am still
raging, still raw and
r a g    i    n g
(c) Brooke Otto 2016


plasmapheresis is the removal, treatment, and return of (components of) blood plasma from blood circulation
brooke Aug 2014
sometimes I
still taste you
on my breath.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jul 2017
everyone is just a trophy
a ribbon with gold lettering
paraded and pinned on
trafficked without knowing
but I don't want to be someone's
harp, the goose that lays gold
eggs for show, i am not the
prize that follows your glory
days stuck in a stadium
i am desperate to
shake this off, the
bragging rights
scrawled over
my shoulders
i do not want
to be spun on
a pedestal before
your family--what
kind of infamy
gently unwrap me
and hold me in your
palms, i am more
injured bird than
vince lobardi trophy.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Nov 2012
So far I have picked up
my phone several times
while wondering in between
separate thoughts
what is the nature of his
intentions and why doesn't he respond?

I hate games, I hated Sorry,
Balderdash, Operation

He mentioned that all girls are crazy
hit the right spot,
I don't really think I am
but that doesn't change the fact that it
stuck with me

If I go through motions enough
the should i
could i
no i won't
do you think 21 times would do the trick?
or was it 28 to break a bad habit?

I didn't think he was a bad habit

Oh, he was three jobs, and school
a sport to attend to, more games
more everything else

and I keep considering the scenarios
how do i approach this? How do I seem unlike
the 'crazy' women he's spoken about?
oh, she's positively daft
he must say to himself

I think.

I *think
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
I had this dream where instead of
crows on the roof there were
cats and a dog who was friendly

The landlord discouraged my meetings and glued the door shut so
i could only look, set
wind chimes in my room to make sure
i didn't move about

but i ran fast and from
someone with green eyes who
terrified me but i didn't feel terrified

although my chest pumped
and he laughed in my face saying

I've been trying so long
to catch you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
A dozen eggs
seven prayers
my lips aren't
soft, what am
I doing, God?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2013
gotta stop trying
to win your heart
even though you're

gone.
(c) Brooke Otto

yeah.
brooke Nov 2012
I'm only made of silk and sometimes I tear easily

It might be beautiful when I do, when I break

Elegantly, in private

Wake in the morning, half swept in fantasies

where my fingers have only touched those in dreams

the faces I could never kiss outside

I might even fall in love with you

no one taught me to read before I read.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2013
What boat ever made
for sailing said to itself
"I would like to sink."
?
(c) Brooke Otto


hope.
brooke Jul 2013
a run through the gravel,
stuck by quartz and geodes,
i'm not sure, can you heal
with the rocks still under
your skin?
(c) brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2012
he speaks a kind of
currency that could
pull the stars closer
if that kind of thing

were possible
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2013
I hate you because
I meekly sought
your comfort in
the theater, telling
you I still loved him
and you went and
fell in love with him
too
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
There was a tube
of chapstick in the
lapel of his jacket
and i wondered
silently if it
might be
the same
as a kiss.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2017
one of the few things
I remember is standing
at the corner of his garage
pleading please, stop.
while he laughed, circled
the pool table, breaking
the billiards into two pockets
close and tight, that wide
grin spread across his
face before sprinting
through his front door
hoping i'd be too drunk
to remember him spitting
*get yourself home on your own
closely followed by waking up to his
cold hands, a soft sorry,
you'll be okay, he's whispering.

you'll be okay.


(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Sep 2016
the drive down hardscrabble is filled with
the rasp of Jim's feed truck and the heavy
jangle of steel parts in the side compartments.
For a while we don't speak and i lose myself
in the stars, eaten up by Ursa Major, broken down
and condensed, blown out and away--
His headlights wash across the aspens
with their rangy bodies congregated on the
western slopes; spectral and reminiscent of
dancers or other sylphlike beings captured
unannounced.


when I think back on this moment
I realize that's where it all ended
the last moment where for a few
idle seconds, it seemed like
maybe it could work
out.

there's a barely-there eroticism about the
way he touches me, with rough, seasoned
fingers pressing eagerly between the tendons
in my wrist, racing up my shin or gingerly sweeping
the inside of my thigh.
I
used
to feel all the time
(c) Brooke 2016
Written in March. Unfinished and I'm tired of seeing it in my drafts.
brooke Jul 2014
I am done
playing with
clay, with mud,
making pots
and men.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke May 2013
Take your knives and
graters, peel my onion
layers, get me pure
down to my core.
(c)Brooke Otto
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 Jul 2015
i placed red flags
around the old self
and quarantined my
old life, so maybe that
is why he doesn't come

as if to say, no, not yet,
you aren't quite ripe
too small on the vine
a bud, firm within
the tangles, solidly
green and sour
I'm working on it



I'm working on it.
(c) Brooke Otto 2015
brooke Feb 2014
he covered his
face and said
he loved me.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Apr 2014
i am so mad at men
and I don't know why
is what I want to say
I'm almost positive it
is the redirected frustration
over what I couldn't control
gone rabid, but I am taking
it out on everyone and I don't
know how to

stop.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Apr 2017
I thought for sure God had left me
when he laid his hand across my chest
and pressed in--what a peculiar feeling,
of hurting, but not really hurting, of
breathing, but not really breathing,
I laid there barely gasping, fingers
rapping against my sternum,
trying to break through to
hold my heart, just to hold
it, just to pull the weeds
from their vice grip and
feel it quiver, then quake,
then
roar.
This was written on April 8th of last year. draft dump. Sorry guys.
brooke Jun 2017
you said bad guy
like it was inevitable
as if the amount of
things said against
you
made an awful lie
true, as if a town with
zero know-how had
gotten inside,
you
said you had to stick
around to show it didn't phase
you, didn't want to be held
because maybe that's not what
good guys do.

maybe you're right. good men
have run further,
and if you're still falling then
wait for the ground,
but you'd be silly to
think you're
anything but a man
who wants to best
or deserves the best
and if you have to
hide it then hide it,
fake it if you have to
fake it but you're
too warm to
talk like that
there's no ice
in you yet
just a breeze
just a season
(c) Brooke Otto 2017

cause he wouldn't listen if I told him this.
brooke Oct 2013
i drew myself
a crown of marigolds,
I am trying to see the me
that others say exists.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2017
breathe a little
with me,
open up that chest
a bit, you have time
but not for this,
i can see you coming
back, a ways out
around the bend
with that pretty smile
I've missed,
an' no one out there
as happy to see you
as me, your arms
are leanin' up
a few weeks
done you real good,
so keep walking
keeping on coming
i've been scared to
have you back under
this roof but you never
did care much for theatrics
come home brooke,
come home.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Aug 2012
did you conquer me?
DID YOU CONQUER ME?
did you conquer me?
was this land enough?
To be pillaged, to be sought
to be taken?
Did you conquer me?
Are you happy now?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2012
Those houses are gold across the water
citrine streaked and royally gorgeous
a bit like mermaid hair under the boats
there's a story i can't quite remember
A little boy and the sun whom he loves
every evening she'd paint the windows
for a while they'd be a splendid kind of beauty to see

'oh what wonderful things must be behind that window'

he had so much hope for things that disappeared but
never failed to return
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2016
yesterday a seventy year old man
named Stan slid a crumpled receipt
across the teller counter and asked
me out--and James from Faricy had
his manager give me his number
on the back of a deposit slip

and I told Ryan that I was positive
he had caught me off guard, that anything
more than friends is not doable so he
thanked me for my honesty and
stopped responding.

and a whole slew of other men,
other apologies, other dancers
and sweaty palms, all lengthy,
wordy paragraphs ending in
too quiet or christ, just take
a break
but -

i am falling asleep. upright, at
the bank, to the sound of cashiers
checks sliding out of the printer
an angry little girl knocking at
my door, a child from too long
ago who's never been in love
slipping in and out of a
subdued conciousness
I give up my idea of
the perfect man,
I give it up


i give it up.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016
brooke Apr 2016
i would like to tell him
that i would not have
documented these things
if I had known it all would end so soon
I would not have kept track of the firsts
of his hands, or his movements or
the profile of his face with the Sangre De Cristos
rising up behind him, how I thought he must
be a part of the land.
of the steady
way I was p r o b a b l y
falling in love
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

one of those poems you let sit for a day before they grow on you.

this was written on the 21st of March.
brooke May 2016
Oh, i'm far too soft
in a warm beer kind
of way, won't burn
when I go down,
no heart-of-dixie
kind of wild, and I'd
only climb into your lap
when the truck's in park,
and only then just to tease
because my hips probably
do a thing or two--but I've
never had the chance to
let someone in on my
secrets, on the road map
to my thighs, and how I
hardly keep quiet--
but I got bible verses for
fingers although the holy
spirit won't seep through,
know lots of things about
the revival in Wales and not
much out of the log tucked into your
visor-- I'm not as scared as
I seem, just ***** easily, if you'd
just wait, if you'd just wait at the
bottom of the hill, I'll eventually
come down, I give everything
too much thought, but commit
100% when I've got the answers,
and sometimes I do, sometimes
i've got the answers, so the wind's
whipping up the dirt and pickin'
up my hair and i must look like
something crazy, but I'm not
I'm not,


I go down smooth.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

some kind of plea
brooke Apr 2014
on the county road
123, horizontal to my
window pane, it runs
along the dry grass
and some teenage
boy rolls down it
his bass a hushed
thump in the night
he's the bump in the
night, and his taillights
leave red streaks in the
black.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
brooke Oct 2012
I want you to make me feel naked everywhere

saying things that make necks hot, face hot

don't have to be so ******, don't have to touch

Want to? Do so, though, don't be so mechanical

swim on, flow on, spill on, no pushing

the things said should tear open, pop seams

wonder what's inside,  beating

running, ebbing, draining, no inspecting, no prodding

a thorough investigation with  eyes, words

make the most difference, words dig the farthest

fill the fastest, reach to ends that previously had

no end

the end
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2013
I cry out:

I cannot do this
without you, ******.

my own strength
is not sufficient.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Aug 2013
I'm not sure time
heals everything,
but eventually after
we have thought about
it so  much, it becomes
routine and routines
are easier and easier
the more that you
do
them.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2013
the milky way is around
100,000 light-years across
which means that, traveling
at the speed of light, it would
take 100,000 years to cross
omitting the theory of
relativity.

I've been dreaming about
going far away.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2013
My face is
a common
misconception
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2016
I said
i like the smell of whiskey
and the whole cabin was filled
with puerto ricans and chile pepper
seeds scattered on the floor, a hundred
pots lined up on the stove with rouxs
and sweet syrups, masa mixed with
pork broth, shortening and garlic
the men lining the porch in
sunglasses and blue wranglers
going on about the rig or Virginia
or Hurricane Matthew--

what is it?
about running away?

I thought;
time passes so fast
I've clipped pieces from the past, snapshots i've unknowingly gathered
Uncle Dude three sheets out, standing in the kitchen
after you'd been drinking all day, your mom reminiscing in the corner
with tired eyes and stained fingers from wine,raisins, condensed milk,
consoling a drunk neighbor, (Florida State won earlier)
through the screen while you reclined in the sun or
the rotating image of your heels crunching through the
long morning grass.


I'd been sustained on quiche that needed no seasoning,
coffee creamer, cherry pie and the feeling of slipping bare
feet into boots, on quiet, on  
dark forearms and white biceps
the print of a little bird ring,
dark, brittle nights that smelled like cigars and Coors--


I've been trying to talk to God
all weekend but I think he's gone.
I think I'm alone.
I think I've run away.

I'm home, but there's nobody here.
there's way more on this
critiques are definitely welcome.

(c)Brooke Otto 2016
brooke Apr 2013
I realize here and there
that he is trying to fit me
through a hole with gold
flower curtains and rafters
that brush my face nightly
and I scratch the windows
that don't open in white
dresses, wear this, he
says, wear this and
dance.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
How come my dreams
won't let me realize
i'm dreaming?
brooke Apr 2017
have all those anniversaries
saved in my phone, did saturday pass without regard?
and did you listen to merle to commemorate his death--

still in the habit of sharing the burden,
and it's all just a joke, i try to save
people from every possible pain
even in their absence

finally know why he had
a playlist called whiskey
'cause now I have one too

but if you care to know
I'm alright, still the same
me but the light still shines
in the kitchen and the dandelions
have taken over the yard,
planted lavender and spread
seeds out across Elm
the girls at work
asked why I keep the gold
things that are his
and all i could do was
pause and say
*'cause i'm drillin
for answers
(c) Brooke Otto 2017

the playlist is called Bulleit Rye on spotify if anyone wants to
listen to it.

I'll probably delete this one.
brooke Feb 2013
Lit stage; a petty thought
I realize every day that
I cannot please everyone
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2013
there is nothing quite like a
warm body with a soul, they
breathe and gurgle beneath
you. how could something so
fragile exist and love and feel
the things they do, how does
something so beautiful end
up between your arms,
how do we find these
others, these people
these pieces?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2017
love a girl like pyrite
when you found me in the mines
shook me from your baskets
saw me glint in the sunlight
said my  irises shifted like tiger's eye
i was never what you thought

love a girl like pyrite
if she's your gold then i'm a
shade of amber, a copper quarter
if I was hard then she is soft and
quick in your hands like a gardner snake
faint and without teeth, tangling through
the grass and you love the silent chase
the girls that flip belly up and
kiss your corners, kiss your
borders, rub away the ash
and lay themselves over your grenades
your sticks of dynamite you blew
me away with

love a girl like pyrite
because I was a fool's gold,
the normal luster of something
grand, sieved through your tables
back into the river, the unspoken
daughters of not-good-enough
lying in wait, picked up by farmers
by men who sell, who hock, who
pawn, washed down in Vindicator Valley
run between thumbs, turned up amongst
rocks the ordinary, run-of-the-mill
we can only be imitators of
the greatest


love a girl, who's fool's gold
would you find her?
would you keep her?
(c) Brooke Otto 2017


a phrase that's been on my my mind for a weekq
brooke Mar 2013
I am just as bad
as you keeping
the wounded as
they are, Chaz.
Does this mean
I am the villain
as well?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2016
Queen of the fallen tree and the gneiss ridden
shore, ruling over an empire of celadon
moss and early spring waters, you stand off
to the west (of me) and i see your breath shift
over your lip and dissipate in loose tendrils against
the evening sun

I catch him staring up at the trees arced over
our heads with a strange boyish grin,
this is sorta what I imagine my life to look like he says
all this **** in the way and then beyond that it's clear.
He wipes his hand across the sky as if to illustrate the
supposed clarity beyond the tangle of branches.  I am startled,
I meet his gaze briefly and nod because
if not a mess or entanglement, what better way to
describe the way I feel than to elude to the bracken
and brushwood ?

Out across a wire fence, deer gather quietly and stand
stock-still as we pass, aloof if not for their big inquiring eyes
watching us smirk and bump shoulders because
we don't know how else to be close (I already tried my tricks).
But he surprises me now and again with his gregariousness
with a determination to get to but an equal pleasure in
idling, in stillness, in gliding across my instep, performing
quick studies on my nails or briefly succumbing to the shadow
beneath my collarbone--

Quite arbitrarily, i ask for his pocket knife
but it's him that carves our initials into the
snarl at my feet, his hood pulled close
around his neck as he sets to work
Bis now with those hands that
have been kilned and slipped
with engobe, I am stirred
stirred
stirred
and
awake
awake
and
afraid.
February 25th

(c) Brooke Otto 2016
brooke Jul 2013
yes ma'am
no ma'am
and they
even stepped
aside at the
door, i guess
i could go back
to being a country
girl.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2013
he is leaving again
like the first time, I
am not buried in his
shirts anymore, his
hair is cut, his arms
are stained and I am
still fervently angry
without knowing why
why, why, and worst
of all I do not know
where I am going or
who i am meant to be
and it is all very awful
he's leaving, and I want
him to forget about me
please just forget about

me.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
A pound per grudge
45% lean body mass.
(c) Brooke Otto
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