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brooke Jul 2013
please.
forgive.
me.
(c) Brooke Otto


for being an abusive girlfriend.
brooke Jul 2013
what was
the difference
between fighting
and having someone
to talk to? I knew at one
point but I left my heart
op                             en
hope
tried to reside between
the doors.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2013
we have
all been
that 'someone
else'
(c) Brooke Otto 2013
brooke Sep 2013
and they brag
about their permanence
but it isn't, truly.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2014
the red plaid shirt
you gave me hung
around my drivers seat for
10 months and the collar
bleached pink from the sun
I finally took it off a while
back and the left sleeve
was still fastened so that
it didn't slide up and show
your tattoo, and this morning
I stared at the little red button
that held the corners together
and undid it as if it meant something

maybe it did.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jun 2013
I'm not strong enough
or bright enough and
maybe I deserve that
kick in the face, tellin'
me to wake up
Brooke
Wake Up.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
I am afraid
that certain
people are

you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2013
tables turn and
chair legs shuffle
across the floor
duck, duck,
brooke and
I fly, boy
do I fly.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2015
I'm always loving myself off

a precipice, hanging from the
c r a g s  by branch and string
wet down by s  e  a  and dried
by salt, the  w  a  l  k  here was
long in the tall grass that has no
trail where the  wind whets the
bluffs and steals my hair from its
hood so that I am my own maelstrom
a shred of black off the cliffs, incised
into the gray like my body is only an
o  p  e  n  i  n  g but from far off i am
just a whistle against the headlands,
sea foam and pine needles or
the grains of sand that
never settle.
(c) Brooke Otto 2015
brooke Apr 2013
Why would you want to
know them, you
ask of the same people
who also eat the best
parts of you.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Nov 2015
conversations with paul are a one
way street, an play in a single act
between himself and a shadow (me):


in which Actor tells Actress he loves
her and then watches as her feet burn
holes into the stage and sink beneath
the floorboards, while he dons purple
prose and begins to blame your fire
for the forests he's burned with
his hot breaths and angry manuscripts

and the guilt he peddles is contagious
it wets through your layers to dillute
your kindness, your sorries, your innate
empathy for people in pain and when
he's not here, he's whetting his words
and staking them in your soft soil
in the middle of the night while
you lay unaware but dream
that a thief sweeps through
your garden and uproots
the best and most purposeful
foilage, unguarded even by
the moonlight because
such a thing could not
disguise a lack of a
a person.
(c) Brooke Otto 2015

I'm not sure if this is complete.
brooke Nov 2014
I think of you
and cigarette
smoke fills
my room
through
the carpet
the painting of
me is burning in
the garage and seeps
through the floors, you
wander the hallways and
knock on doors, you were
the biggest liar I didn't ever
know, ever didn't know, liar
biggest liar I ever knew but
didn't know was standing
right in front of me.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Jun 2013
I don't fight with forthgiant
little you, deft little you.
(c)Brooke Otto

this was posted on a billboard in a dream I just woke up from. Part of a longer poem but this was the only part I remember.
brooke Feb 2015
this worry
fills me to
the b r i m
looks  like
the v i e w
from  my
w i n d o w
reads half
french, half
a l g e b r a i c
equation and
worst of all it
wakes me up
in the middle
of the night.
(c) Brooke Otto 2015
brooke May 2013
I had a dream
I was still trying
to outrun you,

what was that?
5th grade? I could
hear you behind

me, a thick breath
that got closer so
I ran faster, no

no, I cannot lose to
you again, I can't
be ugly, I can't

be alone on the playground
anymore, I can't be alone on
the swing-set, I can't go home
until this is done. No, Sierra, I
can't be the outcast again. I

can't beat you
can i? I just have

let go.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Dec 2014
this is a q u i e t type
of living, I want to get
lost in this sweater or
sink in these shoes,
sometimes I wish
I would drown
in cups of water
or burn up against
the wick of a candle
i've been setting three
alarms to be up before
the sun and it's working
out pretty well but I no
longer find solace in
paints or peace in
lead pencils
the things I
love are made
of rice paper and
dissolve under the
weight of words
and bowls of
honey nut
cheerios
I am at a loss
filled with sighs
filled with sighs
filled with sighs
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Apr 28
After thomas died—

I started getting tattoos because
I was suffocating myself in grief
drowning daily in my bed,
in the bathroom, in the yard
laying beached in the grass
beneath a deluge of confusion
no water for miles but I am still
Sinking

Drifting through the Surrey hallways
as an apparition, his blood
on my shins
Garrett’s muffled voice asking
If we could just clean her up

Not yet, we need pictures.

I am a callow soul, his death has stripped me
my mother is calling me a silly girl for
The Psalms on my forearm
Luke across my thigh  
for Nehemiah down my spine
I am trying not to die and
all she can focus on is
the wisp of a golden girl gone

This is the catalyst,
the turning point, the ordained moment—
I have not had many of these but when they come they are all encompassing;
I am suddenly not me anymore but
Wet clay, the potter has unmade
me nearly beyond recognition

death has come
And the lord has let it shape me

Death came and it almost took me—
I fought for my life and all my mother could say was

Silly girl


..
(C) Brooke Otto 2025
brooke Apr 2013
I used to be
scared of my
stretch marks
(c) Brooke Otto

but I'm not anymore.
brooke Oct 2013
you're so
angry that
angry people
are the only things
you attract and that's
no longer me.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Mar 2013
Today was the first
time in a long while
that I have laughed
so hard I have cried
where I cannot stop
would not stop, and
though it might not
last I was happy, a
true kind of

happy
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke May 2016
whenever I get to thinking
about what it is that you really
like, like if bourbon was your
vice then i'd be some simple
syrup, the kind my grandma
makes--with sugar and hot
water, and how you only
use a little, a little goes
a long way.

still got those words runnin'
through my head, you'd be better off
you'd be better off if you were
*you'd be better off if you were by yourself
(c) Brooke Otto 2016
brooke Mar 2015
i cant find the words
right now to properly
express how I feel but
i'm getting lost in this
body, in the marks and
dimples turned to scars
and valleys and shadows
and the way i'm stretched
around muscle and fat I
can hardly remember that
first and foremost i   a  m a

spirit
(c) Brooke Otto 2015

writer's block.
brooke Apr 2013
will you make
wine out of me?
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Apr 2013
He says that she

loves me

but I know better

I know

people
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
i would rather be
conscious through
all the pain than
drown myself
in menial
activities
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2014
I'm sure you all know that
having patience with your-
self far outweighs the need
to love yourself, b e c a u s e
loving yourself is hard but
knowing that everything
takes time to accomplish
is harder, and so I wake
up and ask myself when,
and if I do, will it be all
inclusive, as in, will I
love myself at my
worst, too?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke May 2013
I should preface this by saying
that I have my good days, but

everything is in the wrong place
everything is in the wrong place

and I wish I could see in the mirror
what they have seen in me but instead

everything is disjointed and crushed
beneath offhanded comments, and
the overwhelming need to be pretty

I just want to be pretty
I just want to be pretty.
(c) Brooke Otto


the universal struggle.
brooke Sep 2013
I used to be fat
and sometimes I
still think I am, but
being called skinny
minnie hurts just as
much as fatso.
(c) Brooke Otto

Even compliments are shrikes.
brooke Nov 2014
sleep against my thigh
my skin is made of steel
so you melt the edges
with your breath,
draw figures in the grey
like windows in the cold,
you huff, puff and the frost
is gone, your hands burn
imprints on my waist and
crack my hips that are made
of glass, a fracture line that
carries up my chest, an
earthquake that shifts
through my bones, that
haunts me when you're not
at home, so come home,
come home,

come home.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

dear nobody.
brooke Oct 2012
If he lays his head on your
chest and sleeps
he loves you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jul 2017
drive safe,
don't be dumb
le porte est ouverte
brooke Aug 2013
I said, "I hate how I open-mouth
breathe when I sleep, pretty girls
sleep with mouths closed." and
you replied that the way I slept
melted you down to your core.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2013
you cannot
unknow the
warmth of a
body.
(c) Brooke Otto

I can feel it in books.
brooke Apr 19
His tongue is searching my mouth
for who I used to be and I’m staring at the
Amber lampshade above my bed—

His sideburns are thinning, just in the last year,
I have committed this particular view to memory
many times, his arms; Liana vines enveloping my waist, ankles tucked around my calves,
I am a tiny animal
between his limbs.

I am memorizing the way his hairline fades into his neck, the shape of his forehead, the bistre shadow of his browbone in the foreground—

I do this to remember, I do this to hide you away
In an atrium, in the pulmonary trunk
I keep everyone there, so when they’re gone
when they are inevitably gone—
I can visit,
A softened recollection where I’ve allayed the pain of letting go—

I knew this would happen,
but Ive touched;
I’m touching you anyway,

What is it worth—
if I can’t remember?

You’re kissing me,
Im easing you into
my heart—

You always wanted that.
I  read back to when I first started writing here and missed the honesty with which I used to write. Here’s something recent, written like I would have years ago.
brooke Aug 2016
I say something like
I want to know everything about you
and that's not me lying, just my genuine
curiosity out there in the open so when
people ask about you, your favorite
flavor of ice cream will fall right off
my tongue, a thousand little facts
about your truck or your garage
or things I picked up just listening to
the sound of your voice

I like to know people the way I know myself
but maybe i've been careless, maybe i've taken
hearts and made them cranes, taken their soft
rippled surfaces and flattened the corners,
maybe i've been too negligent in the art
of loving, in making sure i've not made
a home where there ought not to be
because i'm good at finding a place
to nest, in the rafters of their chests
and most don't mind birds but


girls aren't birds
girl's aren't birds
and don't have the right
to come in and say they have
all the answers

so i'm out on a county road and I'm saying something like
i'm sorry, please don't leave


I'm sorry, please don't leave.
(c) Brooke Otto 2016

cowboys and mostly indians
brooke Jun 2012
I see,
when I look at her that
everything is so smooth and
without hindrance
taut, I suppose
whereas when I try
like that
I am crooked and unappealing
there is no equivalent in
my world that can compare
to her
i could never be
appropriately pretty
for you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2015
i'm struggling between
the halves of my soul
that grow out and away
upholding a frayed doctrine
that shudders and trembles
on its string, unable to be
on its own without a divine
voice to soothe the cracks
and speak sweet truths
place definitions over
ragged cuts and
stitch together
stone to stone
with nothing
but water.
(c) Brooke Otto 2015

written to I Need My Girl by The National
brooke Aug 2014
Paul told me to
******* as if
Brooke was just
an abbreviation
and I'm starting
to think that it is
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Feb 26
I only just realized
what joy can be—
It is a small thing,
I think,

In the back office
at the bank,
If you leave the chair canted
towards the south window,
the sun will warm the small
blue seat around 11:45

It has always been
such an inconsequential thing to me
always out of reach—

But it’s there,
A quarter before noon
every day.
brooke Dec 2015
today analeigh gave
a single fragile blink
before bursting into
tears--I've never seen
a child cry.


I've seen children cry.
but from a distance, across
the counter, in the aisle over.
I've seen hundreds of scrunched
faces and balled fists, dozens of
raised voices dismissed in popular
clutter but

when she dipped her head and fell
between the cracks, lost in between
vowels and performance orientation
before I could catch the things that
had been said and suddenly
i was aching, welling, raging
holding--tucking little strands
of wet hair behind blushing ears
and my voice was new and not
mine--soft and assuring
no, no, sweet girl

you are so smart

breaking a bit
for a baby
folded into
social constructs

she cried
and I broke
for her.
You are so, so smart, sweet girl.

(c) Brooke Otto 2015
brooke Jul 2017
i will stop holding my
heart out like grocery
samples, take this,
take this, I've heard

we take we
think we deserve--that
of lonely people, then--

i would love to give
to the lonely but not
myself,

if not a hand-out then
bushels of peonies
wrapped in brown
paper, in bloom
and beautiful.
(c) Brooke Otto 2017
brooke Oct 2013
knowing myself
is harder than
knowing
anyone
else
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
These impurities
they have minds of
their own and refuse
to surface, i'm
looking for gold here,
beneath you
beneath you
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Jan 2014
you pull up and give me a
Hug, I press my fingers into
your shoulders and forget to
imprint the feeling. Earlier you
said I should just say things even
if they come out garbled, you asked
"How are you?" but it was more like
How are you? and it sounded a
a whole lot like something more. So
I ask; Do you still love me? and your
answer is broken, but you are hasty
to return, and you? I say yes, no
hesitation and close the door.
All I remember are the two beats
my heart gave, loud and unyielding
the way my chest was tight and I
wanted to ask if you'd kiss me
don't look behind me, I am so
confused as to why i. Why...i.
why I?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
1/2/14

This poem was a lot shorter originally.
brooke Apr 2013
How many times
do you think God
will grant me mercy
on the mistakes that
I have made (and
continue to make)
before he
before he
before
he
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Sep 2014
The way i ask people
to hang out is kind of
predatory, if this were an
act in two parts, you
would see all of my
acquaintances board
a carousel, and then
watch me grasp at
their clothes as
they flew past
on their steeds
the camera
film would
shutter across
my face, and
a pair of arms
stuck out like
prongs or jaws
or claws or pincers


trying to catch on.

catch on?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
brooke Oct 2013
i've dedicated a
hundred poems
because you left
a sort of permanence
on my skin, have you
written about me since
since
since
(c) Brooke Otto

we all wonder if they did.
brooke Oct 2012
I have so far searched all the wrong places
And the someone I would want in my life
Shouldn’t want someone like me at all
So how do I get there?
This apple cider is cold.
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2012
There's this Polaroid you have of me
in your room l'hiver dernier , you can't see my face
Sauf pour my eyebrows and the dark shadow of my lips
it's snowing in the background and
everything is white, I can feel the cold of your room
and the candles you burned, yankee
McIntosh Apple, where your dressers were scented like laundry detergent
Christmas lights strung across your ceiling, the nudes tucked inside A Clockwork Orange
Our time happened in the winter, beneath the street lamps glowing
Always within walking distance, you'd tread through the puddles
8pm to play chess in the dark living room of my house
Or when we played monopoly beneath your sheets, drenched
where Kaitlin and Miranda weren't people and only taboo
I still played video games inside your arms and you still acted gay
I enjoyed your bashful tendencies and the roughness of your skin
but now
but now
as much as i would love to revisit those times
i recall that i'm older, that i'm older
that we're different and the snow would
not be the same, but that picture of me
in your room last winter, where you can't see my face
I remember
(c) Brooke Otto
brooke Oct 2014
La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, or,
Liberty Guiding the People is a
painting by Eugène Delacroix
used as cover art for Coldplay's
Viva La Vida and Liberty seems
to guarantee life above her head
with ample ******* that seem to
tell me everything is going to be
alright.

You used to tell me that the first
half of *Death and All his Friends

reminded you of me, so, when I
hear it, I am you, listening to me
with Chris Martin telling me to
come over, just be patient, don't worry
and I am seventeen again, beneath your
dim desk light, in those acid wash shorts
knowing you for the first time, knowing
all winter we got carried, oh, let's get
married, all through summer we
hurried, so come over, just be
patient...don't worry.

So come over, just be patient, don't worry.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014

i am grateful.


The link to the song for the curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_n5LGn1sZ0
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