Breadcrumb #71

DANIEL GRJONKO

When did I say that?

...rings through my head which is purple
and twisted into the filthy blue couch
that we have evolved into owning. 

I used to be owned by the moon...
she would wring me sick and force me to drink,
but that’s changed.

I still drink,
but that moon sits on a chain around your neck,
ever-sliding in gravity with its shadow.

And as we want to laugh as we terribly scream,
I see that gravity shifting.

Between us — 
the moon and its brother who have embraced as lovers —
something shifts.

Two strangers, or space rocks,
or dust, locked in gravity —
which is something we give a name to
so we feel like we understand it — 
start to speak in truths.

But logic offends the other.
It must.
And so I hear myself screaming

When did I say that?

• • •

Breadcrumb #70

JD DEHART

short and angry
perhaps not the best
modifiers but appropriate
 
        hairy would also
        fit (chagrin)
 
I imagine what kind of leader
I would be — who would follow
a short and angry and hairy
person like me
 
sometimes my recorded voice
sounds clear and decent
and sometimes there’s too much
        something — accent?
 
would I be a Narcissus pool
of kindness and wisdom, drawing
others to me
then drowning them without
meaning to?
 
would I keep the plates
of drama spinning
and constantly send out
the guard to gather half-
truths
and probably believe
the wrong damn half
of everything they bring me?
 
perhaps I would simply
sit and enjoy the feeling
of a plush throne until
some nice guy came along
and tried to take my head off
 
it’s meditations like these
that make me happy to be
middle level and unassuming
but that’s also probably
what irritates my flush
red temper

• • •

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

• • •