the half of me you held was the dark radar feeling through the blur of how we are now electric that one time you tangled into me
like the slaughter of an animal in water turning the screws out of the hinges as the darkness of death reveals itself as freedom
i should have pulled the choir closer peeling my mouth out of the fire let the night pitch its threat all the way through me
& the naked dream of skin wasn’t about the skin but the holding that lunges like lunar bells through me —the constant closeness of chaos the day dragging me by the hell of my heels into its awful furnace
i try to remember i will forget you & tell you it’s as if we’ve never met pulling the harm of your arms into my heart & our sweet plea for one moment of peace —that secret form of sleeping
it’s this endless conversation in the middle of our conversions bound by the relentless element of exhaustion
but i have a forehead ranged of evil wind-filled grooves where the memories were removed & the obscured autonomy of that deleted history —i complain though i could never conceal you
there could be nothing more normal than our mouths nothing more normal than— nothing as terrifying as an outcome the perfunctory allegiance we slave to
i will have to lie my way into deadlines force the stubborn distance into something greater than distance
i keep asking myself how i surrender
so easily
every day the night comes?
—
Scott Jacobs lives in Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Word Riot, A5Q, jubilat, Souvenir, and Incessant Pipe.