memory

light

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

I hold my heart in the same places
His belt strikes the narrow space between my voice and disappearing
He assures me, serious, (not yet)
Smash them under
Get caught
Control yourself
You are shaking
Are they angry feelings?

I wonder how I say nothing
I press the air out of my chest till I mumble it’s ok, don’t worry
They pressure, finger, clarify in this space that it isn’t
Why do you look so badly
It’s so fucked up here
On any given day
You are hurt
Are they sad feelings?

I use the cool concrete to firm my resolve
Stoke the wet center of my anxiety
They push their upper body and say, voice disappearing
Can you trust yourself
Come in
I want to
You are hiding
Are they fear feelings?

You want to hurt me while I’m quiet
I know what I can muster is wrong in the spaces between what is/n’t
They tell me I’m ok with that (for the future)
I’m trying with you
I start you to keep pushing
Pooling brightness
You are softening
Are they joy feelings?

harder

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

kick myself for me, brightly coming, releasing his eyes
sometimes I sit completely still
barely breathing while you start the next

Lately you’d been gone and you’d asked for a good boy. I can be asked for it.

“I think you should try harder”

I sit in your chair, refusing to pout, inserting lines between us. I decide I do.

You start in one moment not to miss me or feel better,
saying softly, as if you are me,

“We have you, whatever is left”

Your facade falls as you push your own needs, follow my hair down my face. I can be disciplined.

“Do you know what I’ve asked you for?”

You bark defensively.
You’ve been softer,
warmer with a bit in your gaze. You think I’m unruly.

I spit his domination and desire
My ears burn and pound
Wrap my body in a shield
Before he unzips his bulge

I don’t miss you
I don’t want you close
I don’t want you so warm while looking away

You get up behind me, make me walk in front of you, all hard inside
He opens his fear, standing, towering over, relentless, angry, jealous

“I…I… I t…tried my eyes, inserting them for your eyes that wander to make you look at…”

“What are you looking at?”

“No.. nothing…”

I stutter. I can obey him. He is terribly confusing, and I’d do what was never heard before. He keeps me to work on himself, but the sight of him turns me staring.

“What did you do?”

His mouth drops if I look at him. He pushed hard earlier when I hadn’t put the possibility on the table. He taught me how to be ashamed of admiration in the corners of my knees.

I want to be as you want to be, so provocative I almost lose focus
I’m not a door for you to break open
a pool for you emotionless eyes

He complies with his desire and immediately regrets it, jerking, red with shame.

“Do you need to tell me that what you did was wrong?”

You got all hard inside me and I let you
You have a way to make it about me
I am just playing along
to keep you from warning me
about looking up

I wish I had answered the voice of confusion
I wish I could be an easy friend
I wish I could feel better

I’m trying to tell you that when I obey him his eyes start to work
and it’s for my own good
only I can take it by drawing it out with his pen

experience

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

He acts like he’s nervous,
he could not stammer, “n-n-no, w-h-a-a…wait!”
Kiss the dull sides of his flesh, such I want to cut into the fuck?

this experience kills

The stakes are in killing,
such are his cheeks, “go ahead and danger.”
The balance of his tongue is careful power.

this experience kills the intimacy

The explosive crack of pulling out,
the attack to the jugular is sharp and in love. “I see you.”
The dull side is flush with domination.

this experience kills the intimacy of sex

He jerks back on the object of his sex
and affection for conflict, “Cry boy. Cry.”
I only submit to submit when I can’t conflate intimacy with this matter.

intimacy is sex into the skin

I insert the explosive crack of affection
I can’t help convulsing to the torture, “Suck my pocket, then could I stop, boy?”
He complies, still reeling in the distance, it keeps him completely.

this experience

lost

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

who is..
where is…

what happened to your sex?
is it in the bathroom, the bathtub?
did you drop it into the toilet?
did it get sucked down the drain?

or is it still sleeping entangled in the bedsheets
while you left for work in the morning?
with socks lost to the laundry,
on the kitchen counter,
or in a bag in a drawer for safekeeping?

Did you ask someone to hold it for you,
and then they ran off?

Was it removed by a doctor,
as an anomaly?

When its taken from you
its hard to remember

Maybe mine is in the car with bad breaks
in the ruins of a New England mill
lying in the tall grass next to the river

Or gathering dust in the teacher’s closet
behind the dugout
caught in drag in a bridesmaid dress

You search frantic
sweating
pounding
wanting

for what you misplaced
fearing it is gone

And then you realize
he took it from you
he lost it when
he misplaced his own

bomb

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

i see the fear in your eyes
you know i could go off
at any fucking minute

my head is filled with the knowledge
of what you cannot admit to yourself

my body is filled with the damage
of what you cannot bear within yourself

hide away
lock the door
look through me
pretend I’m not here

you can’t just place your pain in me
then send me off
and wish me well

i used to believe you
i was unlovable
a wreck
a damage
everything vile

i saw myself in your eyes
i was danger
a bomb
a shame
everything evil

fuck you
i will speak
but never against you
and never against my own heart

necessary

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t know anyone could hear me
write a riddle
design a game
study, advance, retreat

I didn’t know I could speak
learn a language
you speak me

I’m digging it up
crack weeds at the root
be taboo, say it provocative

I’m tending to my wounds
open yours
break me apart at the seams

My guts are spilling out around you
its ok
i’m fine

give me violence, give me sex
Let me feel you

I’m silent and you’re listening
your tender fingers trace the surface of my walls
your cheek is pressing against my glass heart

I’m digging to loosen all the ground
my spade could split you in two
my sex would penetrate your heart

tend to me, hold me
please
Please

erase it

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

before someone sees

she’s erasing me
like a mistake
an ugly thing that shouldn’t have

no sooner do i disappear
and then she constructs a shrine
a memorial to my untimely death

remove every trace of hir
broom and dust pan
burn the poems for my pedophile
trash my phalic paintings

will you want to keep these love letters?
no.
you might wish you had
no.

sweep me up into the attic
away into the closet
where i hid from him
with my stuffed animals

stuffed animals into trash bags
they have bugs,
dirty

keep it under the bed
before it gets put into yard sales
and give aways

i cannot be erased
when i was never there to
begin with

you could find me in my writing
my drawings
hiding inside my father’s tattered clothes

craft a memory of what i could never be
you will sleep there sometimes
i never could

remember it

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

Children can love it shrieking,
recklessly racing up the dunes without the fear of falling
I fear children
they remind me of how her life was stolen, of her unheard cries of terror
Children make me sad
they remind me of how he never got to grow up doing the things boys do

Ignore the children
and the father’s laughter will spike a chill up the neck
a punch to the gut
the smiling family portrait will turn demonic
uncanny eyes

The sand is a pit and I’m sinking
He can soothe the anxiety of his control by making your sex
(it’s the way it’s always been)
Forget it
But I miss it

make a scene

~ jacobalden ~ Leave a comment

Threads of the past tied a knot in my side
 afraid to weave them,
 cannot allow them them unfurl

I keep my nightmares in my pocket,
you know, the kind that go on without end
you’re never sure you are getting anywhere
you move too slowly, like you’ve been drugged
    you’re either in trouble,
     late,
    or just plain vulnerable

Mine is a crime scene
 floral wallpaper
 the smell of him in the laundry
 residue of piss blamed on former residents
 lint and hair in the bathtub drain

     I don’t want to touch it
     I want to know
     I don’t want to know
     I want to touch it

Don’t disturb the debris
 hang up the wet towel on the shower rod
 keep the fuzzy toilet seat cover neatly in place
 but you left your underwear on the floor
     sloppy

I smell 409 and antibacterial soap
 you clean that shit up
Don’t let anyone see the dirt
My body is dirty
 you clean that shit up

Hide your eyes
Hide the inside of your head

Coming here now I thought to have it out with you
 but it’s empty, just as you left me

I won’t touch it
I will go about my own business
Take a shower, run a bath
Take a shit, wash my hands
Lather, rinse, repeat