Breadcrumb #69

JOANNA C. VALENTE

I. 

The skies cannot blur
even when you squint

& remember too many trees
in your parent’s backyard, once

a breath away & I have stopped
breathing

& there is no gelatinous
sunset to bring me back & raise

my bones to a place where I'm
found except humming on the tip

of your tongue as you sleep
hearing sounds of stinging where

flesh on flesh swirls into shells
tilting milky necks.

II.

In a shaft of moonlight, a voice
your voice

wedges beneath rusted garden
tools hidden in the basement

& there is nothing in my mouth
except for absence of fingers—

a lake night-filled with your body
playing a concert for Mickey Mantle

& the ghost of a girl on victrola
who says she found you, a red

orchid, growing out of a sea-foam
green Chevy unguarded & silent

as clouds drifting together in
the shape of a ribcage, no blood

& the sunlight shifts & breath begins
in unison.

• • •

Breadcrumb #68

CHRISTINE STODDARD

I'll never forget the night I woke up to you fingering me. Seinfeld was on TV and I had on a towel. You were still in your gym clothes and smelled of the Gatorade you'd dribbled all down your T-shirt. Our first and only date was a workout. When I whipped around, you grabbed my neck before I could scream, but not before I could kick. I missed, so you were still able to do what you wanted to do. It didn't matter that I struggled because you'd been lifting weights for the past 10 years. Thus I became the moth to your bell jar. I fluttered until I froze and I froze until I fell, withered, too exhausted to whisper.

“Thus I became the moth to your bell jar.”

     You said, “It's cute how strong you think you are.”

     You came on the towel, then pushed yourself off of me.

     “Easy cleanup, right?” you asked, grinning.

     I said nothing, not unlike before. "No" means "no," but what does silence mean? Silence can mean no. A kick, a shove — those can mean no. Unless the person on top thinks or wants otherwise.

     You shrugged. “Well, later. Gotta study or History 303 will get my ass.”

     I was in the 98th percentile for History 303, until I dropped the course. It was supposed to be my fun elective. But the prospect of burning under your gaze from across the lecture hall changed that.

     I spent the rest of the semester dodging you. I just wanted to get out, go far away. I wanted to live in a place where I'd never see the glint in your eye again. I hoped graduation would give me that.

     It didn't.

     I decorated my mortarboard with glitter glue and a map of the world because I was going to trek my way across the globe. Before I handed in my final paper, I was already packed.

     From the Great Wall to Linlithgow, it didn't matter. I still saw the glint. I still couldn't breathe. I still felt my heart racing and my wings pounding until everything stopped. I fainted at the foot of the Eiffel Tower without a wedding proposal in sight. Instead, I saw your lid coming down from the sky.

     It didn't matter where I was; the moth cannot escape the bell jar.

• • •

Breadcrumb #67

SCARLET GOMEZ

Virginal white satin corsets
are how you gift-wrap a woman

who wrote herself letters from Plato’s ghost
ending each with, “Only the dead
have seen the end of war.”

She was an unnatural little thing
stepping into the crown like unwrapping
gifts from Zeus—

uncertain of what to expect
but knowing she’d have to accept it anyway

Queendom should not be measured
by the fault in your stars 

The next time they want to run off with
your crown after only ruling for 9 days

rule for 9 more, then for 9 more, 
and then exponentially

Mother does not know best
Keep out of the wedding gown

leave your locks braidless
and when father walks you down the aisle

with the same tenderness as when
he laid eyes on you
for the first time

turn around
and keep Death waiting

• • •

Breadcrumb #66

ROSS KNAPP

I want my latte

Now before my eyes

Hurry the fuck up

Memorize my name

You will be cheery

Be very merry

Or I’ll report you

But don’t think of that

We’ll act like old chaps

Where one is master

One is dependent

Enslaved mind and psyche

Where two people just

Happen to play house, 

Abusive house, each

And every day.

Rage hatred scorn spit.

Have a good day sir.

• • •

Breadcrumb #65

MADELEINE HARRINGTON

When Andrew broke up with his girlfriend, she pulled her knees to her chin and let out a deep, animalistic moan, a noise more genuine than anything he had heard in their three years of regular and then semiregular intercourse. There was potential humor in this, Andrew thought, and he might have made a joke about it had there not been such an indistinguishable line between the drool and the tears coming out of his ex's face and had they been situated somewhere less confined and lower to the ground, rather than a 60-person airplane that was charging like a bull across the Rocky Mountains.

     "How long have you felt this way?" she demanded in between raspy gulps of air.

     Andrew shook his head. He could not give her the answer she wanted. He could not provide an exact length of time, although he could give her a vivid description of how sour her breath was in the morning, or the alarmingly high pitch of her cackle when in the company of strangers, or her consistent misuse of the word "literally."

     "I don't know. I'm sorry," he said finally. He handed her his cocktail napkin and, upon catching the eye of the stewardess, gestured to the pile of soggy napkins overflowing onto both trays. The stewardess understood immediately and came over to replace the soggy napkins with fresh ones, displaying a smile that was so appropriately empathetic it made Andrew uncomfortable.

     "This isn't happening. I don't believe it. I thought you loved me." She said “love” like it was a kitten she was dangling a knife over. They were both very sunburnt: her more on her upper arms and chest, him on the backs of his legs and face.

     “I did love you. I still do.” He meant it too, because love was a tricky concept, something that usually sounds much more promising than it really was. If Andrew’s ex meant the inevitable affection that builds from waking up to the same person’s face for hundreds of consecutive mornings, from having passionate conversations with that person’s mother about the price of bagels, and from memorizing every groove and contour and sprouting pubic hair of that person’s vagina, then of course Andrew loved her. However, if she was referring to willpower, the want to move forward hand in hand into the daunting universe, a universe where other vaginas with different patterns of folds and flaps floated nearby freely yet unattainably, then Andrew did not love her.

“He meant it too, because love was a tricky concept, something that usually sounds much more promising than it really was.”

     “It’s someone else isn’t it? That new office assistant. You’ve told me like 10 times about how you guys have the same taste in movies.”

     “There isn’t anyone else.” This was true, although Andrew had been secretly and truly thrilled about his identical movie taste with the new office assistant, that and her nose freckles and unruly dark brown hair. At office karaoke nights, they often sang Fleetwood Mac duets, and Andrew felt that sometimes they were singing beyond their respective roles.

     “So then what? What is it?”

     They were on their way back from a week of camping in Grand Teton National Park, a collaborative gift from his ex’s group of friends for her 26th birthday. When his ex had begged them to let her bring Andrew, they had rolled their eyes collectively and said fine, under the condition that he didn’t act weird and that they brought their boyfriends too. Andrew did act weird, at least according to Briana and Chelsea’s standards, and after six cans of chipotle chilli and an unsettling, irritating rash on his inner thigh, he had made his decision.

     “I don’t know what it is. I wish I did. I’m so sorry.”

     “Trust me, Andrew, no one is sorrier than me.” As she moaned and blew her nose into an already damp napkin, Andrew silently agreed.

     The plane descended gracefully and when it hit the runway, everyone applauded with the exception of two passengers. Andrew carried both duffel bags, as if that could make it better, and on the way out, the same stewardess said “have a pleasant stay in New York” in such a way that made his stomach turn.

     Andrew took the subway home from JFK airport, closing his eyes as families, breakdancers, and homeless people alike loudly cursed the presence of his large purple duffel bag. His ex had insisted and then begged for them to share a cab — they lived only eight blocks apart — but by then his mind had shut down completely and he didn’t want her, or the cab driver, to see that. He had opened the cab door for her, lifted her bag into the space beside her, and placed 20 dollars into her reluctant palm. The disappointment in the driver’s eyes shone like street lamps.

• • •