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 Dec 2014 erin
brooke
for no reason.
 Dec 2014 erin
brooke
my mom tells me to
be encouraged and I
want to pry my ribs
apart and show her
my whitewashed
insides, how someone
went and took a matte
finish to my skin, I want
to show her the average
diary entry from 9:05 pm
and how I've stopped signing
my name because these letters
never get to God, I want her to
sit in on my conferences with
the empty chairs at work and
listen in on all the phone calls
I don't take, expect my showers
to be two hours long when really
i'm just filling the bathtub over
and over and      over and  
            over                  over
over



over
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
 Dec 2014 erin
Audrey Gleason
When the snow falls there's a sort of tangible peace outside because everything is quiet
But snow isn't falling with us right now.
I hope you know
I did what I thought was right at the time but it doesn't
seem to matter now so I
hope you'll see I had to
find God's path again I
never wanted to hurt you and I'm
still a girl you could love
in a different way
someday
even though I'm out of small quiet i'm sorrys
I'm out of tears running down frozen trembling cheeks
I'm out of shallow breaths and chattering teeth
All that's left is for me to pray
for you to a God you don't find comfort in
But knowing I'm the cause of your suicidal thoughts
has me stuttering a m m men
I'm not sure it's enough
to cycle into the sky
and make the snow fall
even if you never can forgive me
i'll never not care about you
 Dec 2014 erin
brooke
I won't take you in
i'm unwild, unwild
wouldn't wind my
way though all of
your knots, my
pages are dog-eared
unalphabetized, uncapitalized
you can't hide behind that, no
curtains, big windows, small
door, free but contained, uncorked
but restrained, tied my hair down
for sails, a single breath could
******* away.  won't build
monuments in your name
or dress your letters in
gold trim, i've
idolized too
many men.




but i
could
love
you.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014
 Nov 2014 erin
brooke
you eat a lot of cucumbers.


at first you only slice them,
but then you're cutting them
in half, in quarters. You eat
them with carrots, no carrots,
with lemon pepper and salt.
You eat them in your room
with hot tea boiled to 150
degrees, in the kitchen
at the counter staring
out the window, at
the dining table
at the patterns
on the hard-
wood floor.
Is that real wood?
It could be. That doesn't
really matter. You put too
much salt on these. And
sometimes in the tub
you crouch down
and study the
curtains with
an unbridled
amount of curiosity
because you need to be
deep about at least something
but mostly you just realize that
your legs are bruised and your
cuticles sting because you bite
them so often. This water could be hotter.



This water could be hotter.
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.

On Waiting.
 Nov 2014 erin
Joshua Haines
She smells like marmalade
and Christmas trees.
She cuts her heart
where she places her knees.
She smokes in the park,
under the skating skies.
She makes me upset
and sometimes I make her cry.

Over in the dark,
she plays in the snow.
And if she feels cold,
I touch her chest
but I don't know.

Bask in the bark:
our names on a tree.
Carved with the knife
that she swung at me.

She says she's drowning in my ocean,
but I feel no emotion.

Her words suggest our bond
is as strong as a noose.
But she only loved me
when I was something to lose.
 Nov 2014 erin
brooke
Colorless.
 Nov 2014 erin
brooke
there is an aimless sense of
wandering, a trip on an empty
train, floor awash with foot prints
streaked under the seats and here
I am clinging to the handrails, but
like a dream the corners of my vision
are fuzzy and I fight to be unaware
and somewhere from the end of
the car, horses stamp their
hooves, all lined up
behind red stanchions
they aren't bulls but they
breathe like I am red, and
somehow this is all curiously
distant, sauf pour the speed of
the train, the only thing that is
unnerving is the ways in which
I move and blink and how i am
made up of seven billion billion
billion atoms but this number
seems so inconsequential and
small compared to how lost
I feel and how many times
a day I ask myself what
I am doing.


What am I doing?
(c) Brooke Otto 2014.
 Nov 2014 erin
Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 Nov 2014 erin
Jack Kerouac
I keep falling in love
with my mother,
I dont want to hurt her
-Of all people to hurt.

Every time I see her
she's grown older
But her uniform always
amazes me
For its Dutch simplicity
And the Doll she is,
The doll-like way
she stands
Bowlegged in my dreams,
Waiting to serve me.

And I am only an Apache
Smoking Hashi
In old Cabashy
By the Lamp.
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