Michelle Brooks

Crazy

I made you crazy
I drove a man crazy
and yet I dont know how I made him crazy
it wasnt fair for him to be crazy
Im sorry for making you crazy
I wish I could take your place and I be crazy
tell me a way show me a way and make me crazy
my heart hurts cause I made my friend crazy
Please change I dont want you to be crazy
Someone help him, help him, he's crazy
take away his pain that made him crazy
I dont like how I made him crazy
I didnt do it on purpose, I didnt even know I was making him crazy
I wish I could take it all back and he leave me crazy

*previously published in Poem Hunter


A Stranger To Nothing

The first time I tried to leave my husband,
I broke my kneecap, felt it crumble as
the thin blade of my rented skate went
out from under me. It wasn’t a big love.
He was someone to do things with while
my insides rotted away with thoughts of my
rape years before. My leg healed, I got away,
found a big love, a man as accessible as the dead
are, less in fact, told myself that it was okay.
You can’t get everything from one person.
My mother said that. She didn’t even try and her
divided heart never healed. She became accustomed
to the ways of darkness, the light that shines in it.
Forget everything, the darkness says. Try nothing.


Kentucky Derby Day at My Aunt's House

Explaining why he took his girlfriend
back after she slept with his best
friend, my cousin said, I'm like Don Coyote - -

I just keep charging after windmills. I
tried not to laugh and resisted the urge
to correct him. Taking another sip
of my Mint Julep, I thought, You're more
like Wylie Coyote, hammered with same
bullshit schemes every time, but I have
been both Don and Wylie enough times
not to make the distinction. The Mint Julip
tastes sweet for a second, then the bitter
kick of bourbon. Each year our family
argues about how to make them, each
year they taste the same. It's a tradition,
my mother says, you can't watch the Derby
without drinking at least one. It doesn't matter
if the mint leaves are bruised or crushed, I can't
drink enough of other things to get the taste
of the drink we all share out of my mouth.

*previously published in Homestead Review


Second Day Reported

I have never told anyone this,
and I am not going to start now.
You won’t recognize me because
I’ve dyed my hair, and I don’t
answer to the same name. But
here’s something. This is the worst
story I have ever heard. Once a woman
was gang-raped in an apartment
where men kept streaming in and out
for hours, so many that she couldn’t
identify them all. She changed
everything she could so that they
wouldn’t recognize her, but in the end,
she became Apartment 206, and she
could never leave. Some women tell
themselves this place doesn’t exist,
that she doesn’t even exist. The men, well,
they know better, or so the saying goes.


A Spell To Change Your Luck

Stop making your bed. After all,
you're going to get in it later, pull
up the covers, read a book, the one
that changed your life. Maybe you
found it by your old lover's bed inscribed
from someone else. I'm not saying
this has happened to me; it's not a first
person thing. The copy you have is worn
and maybe nobody else knows why you
like it, maybe you don't even know. You're
somewhere else before too long. You are
alone and asleep. Anything can happen.