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 Oct 2019 Brooke
Bo Burnham
Hanged
 Oct 2019 Brooke
Bo Burnham
I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever, point is I hanged myself today and I'm still hanging.

I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping that someone will come home and cut me down but then I keep remembering that if i knew someone like that I wouldn't be up here. Bit ironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I read somewhere that, like, anything funny is, in some way, ironic. But I don't know if it's funny or not. I don't think my brain owns "funny," you know?

I feel taller. I like that.

I've never been away from my shadow for this long. It had always clung to my feet, parting momentarily for a quick dive into the swimming pool. But never for five hours. I like it. There's three feet of space between my two and the floor.

I wanted something this morning. I may be stuck. But at least I'm three feet closer to it.
I wanted the book to engage a wide variety of tones and feelings – from seriousness to silliness and from elation to melancholy. This particular poem is from the perspective of a man who has just hanged himself. I thought it was interesting to write a poem from the perspective of someone who has just hanged himself and is pretty nonchalant about it. That someone is /not me/, and that’s half the fun of writing – being able to put yourself in foreign situations and see things from others’ perspectives (and to empathize with them). The poem is definitely dark and a little unsettling but the page before this was a poem about flies buzzing around dog poo. The world is full of dark and light and I just wanted the book to reflect that :)
 Dec 2018 Brooke
girl diffused
i only learned value
after i picked
through my wreckage
he left me as a broken house
derelict splintered wood
peeling paint
broken shutters
i fed myself softer things
rebuilt myself on a river
and married the earth
It takes a while but eventually the pain recedes. It becomes acrid first, then bitter, then bittersweet, and finally it will taste like nothing at all.
 Nov 2018 Brooke
Jared A Washburn
Will the Earth rumble and crack?
Will the tides roll and crash?
Will time stop? Will fire freeze?
Will my heart skip a beat…or three?
Will my face go numb from smiling?
Will wars stop? Will walls come down?
Will the ovation last forever and ever?
Will all this, and more, occur
when I finally meet you?
This poem was written on Feb. 18, 2011, about two weeks before my son was born.  My wife had experienced early labor pains a few days prior to when I wrote this, and we had thought he would be born around the 15th, or so, but he held out until March 1.
 Nov 2018 Brooke
Shane Hunt
Push
 Nov 2018 Brooke
Shane Hunt
I sold smack on a playground today

    biding time to scrounge the rent--

Two months ago I had never even seen the stuff.
    I'd never procured it for personal use,
    let alone sold it.

Now I'm a full-time pusher of prescriptions
for problems that can't be cured,
a modern-day snake-oil salesmen
schlepping panaceas for every conceivable ill.

Trying to cope with depression?
    This'll give you a shot in the arm!
Your boyfriend just broke your heart
mere weeks after breaking your *****?
    Here's a ***** that you can depend on
...

I thought I was better than this,

but who can afford scruples
                      with bills to pay?

Internally
I struggle to compete
with people who would never deign to take note of me.
My revenge is in undermining their immaculate lives,
a pill-peddling Socrates
keeping creditors at bay.

I'd always envisioned being someone's hero--
at least being remembered for an act of creation.

Instead I'm an enzyme for eradication.
A cancer cell at best--
    A ****** wrecking ball.

                 One day I woke up a sidekick
to a heroine that's never saved anyone...
 Nov 2018 Brooke
Riley Defluo
We are expected to do great things
To save the world
Even when our own lungs
Heave though each breath
Like they're ******* in water
Instead of air

Know this
Sometimes it is enough
To close your eyes each night
And simply say
You made it through the day
Alive again.

— The End —