Breadcrumb #305

DAVID IACONANGELO

When you
and you
would lie together,
the bed would eat
your recognition:

the smells of your bodies
the tastes of your mouths
the weight of your bodies
upon and beneath;

that knowing of the body,
your most trusted knowing,
your ancestors’ knowing
in their brutal millennia.

And your beloved
was not your beloved.

You
and you
may have felt that something was awry
and groped for light.
There was no light
It wouldn’t go on.

Or else the bed had eaten well
the bones crunched up
no other searching
could take place

it seemed there was
no other knowing
but your ancestors’ knowing
in their brutal millennia.

A yellow door would open then
The lid unscrewed
on jars of laughter

The bed would eat
the last of your knowing.
Your beloved
was not your beloved.

• • •

Breadcrumb #304

ASHLEY LYNNE

i am not the moon, though you've told me of my lunar beauty
you said i was like a tide, pushing and pulling you back and forth
but perhaps you confused the oceanic assault on the shoreline with
the way our pelvic regions danced away from one another
like the repelling of two magnets

you relegated me to a thing of borrowed beauty
said i could never be luminary on my own
no solitary source of light, too filled with a catastrophic darkness
my dark side more prevalent than my bright

but i am much more.  inside me galaxies explode
you've been there to feel the milky way be birthed inside me
you've been there for shooting stars growing inside as my back arches
i am not some black hole consuming
i am an asteroid expanding, collecting burnt out stars (like you) as i set in an orbit
on the course of destruction

• • •

Breadcrumb #303

MEENA ROLDAN

                                  These hands are less
                                  than the sum of my hands.
                                  These words are less
                                  than the sum of my mouths.
                                  For my body has been occupied
                                  by a marauding colony of silkworms.
                                  Don’t be misled. I am tumbling
                                  somersaults through this exfoliating high
                                  with my vacant eyes and fingers, revelling
                                  in this great hibernation, but
                                  my mind took the last train hours ago.
                                  I might never have known. How
                                  the wires crossed and gave a dead man
                                  breath. So let me be grateful. Let me
                                  thank the gods. Not for luck,
                                  but for true friends with real spines,
                                  and quick tongues that proved a
                                  lifeline I wouldn’t have known I needed.
                                  We might never have known. How
                                  we carried ourselves home. Up stairs.
                                  Through halls. Like crazed puppet
                                  dolls. The neighbors suspicious of our
                                  good times. One just rolled her
                                  eyes under the sheltered logic of
                                  ‘who would drug you without
                                  raping you?’ So, let’s be grateful
                                  for a job half done. It could be anyone.
                                  We might never have known. How
                                  we lost the day in a cup and our lives
                                  in a balance as thin as morning,
                                  as fragile as these flashes of his
                                  sinister smile as we sunk into the worst
                                  and worst that lasted for days.
                                  Charcoal eyes and cold sweats.
                                  Where all is the same. Repetitious
                                  horseflies replaying circles above a flame.
                                  The worst isn’t that I can’t breathe,
                                  that I can’t hold food in my teeth,
                                  that days later my skin is still green
                                  and I still can’t sleep. It’s not the
                                  I-told-you-sos or shoulda-knowns.
                                  It’s not the bruises and tears in my jeans
                                  and gaping hole in my memory. No.
                                  It’s this animal unleashed. This feral
                                  body inside my body that came out
                                  to play when he put us to sleep. This
                                  carnivorous corpse. This lone wolf
                                  risen from slumbering sheep. This
                                  Venus trap around my neck and stones
                                  ready to throw. Now tell me, where
                                  is there room for this creature to grow?

• • •

Breadcrumb #302

SAMANTHA SETO

He’s walking, a plaid flannel and blue jeans
and – Oh my Lord – we’re in the middle of nowhere,
close to Phoenix, AZ: home of the desert,
the nation’s cactus, and sequoia trees
that shed light on the rivers or lakes preserving
a resource of nature. I breathe the fresh air.
You send a couple to travel with each other
for days, carrying bags and books and too
much luggage filled with clothes and ivory soap,
their different selves begin to intertwine
a peak or the end of a good relationship –
and essentially the death: we’re both mad.
Who made you the best? I say. He says,
talking may turn around to fire at you,
and then he throws a hard, white pillow at me –
to hit my body. He won’t care for months
after he hurts me, yet in every single case,
it pierces my heavy heart, a thunderbolt
before it drops to my feet on the beige carpet,
that forces our lives to diverge in separate ways.

• • •

Breadcrumb #301

OLIVIA MARDWIG

Because it is in the high 70’s and late in the day, sitting on a bench, sun facing and street side, is the only place to be.

    A young French couple on a seat nearby lets their toddler wander shirtless. The little girl has two balloons- one lavender, one cloudy pink. 

    The parents don’t seem to mind how far she gets away from them, letting her walk the curved path behind a row of carefully planted trees. When she comes back into view her face is changed by the tears on it. She is holding only one balloon.  

    To this her mother laughs, to communicate something about loss being easy perhaps. Or maybe in France, this is a game children play with their parents. 

    I look up from my book and there you are. Both hands in your pockets, gazing downward and coming closer. 

“When she comes back into view her face is changed by the tears on it. She is holding only one balloon.”

    “I got your message.” You say.

    “I’m impressed you found me.”

    “Your instructions were pretty clear.”

    Why, I ask myself, am I always the first one to smile?

     “What were you like as a teenager?” you ask me. We had moved to a blanket on the grass and for a moment I can’t remember if I was asleep or not.

    “As a teenager I was exactly the same.”

    “Meaning?’

    “Meaning I would sit in parks with a stack of books, trying to look interesting, hoping someone would come find me.”

    “When I was a teenager I’d spend a lot of time looking for pretty girls reading in parks.” You say.

    “Too bad we weren’t friends then, you could have been part of one of my childhood fantasies.” 

    “Why do you think girls are always coming up with stories?”

    “I don’t know, because a story makes life more romantic in a way reality isn’t.  Don’t guys like being drawn into a fantasy? All you guys have your fantasies too.”

    “I’m not all guys” you say, “Have you ever heard the saying, beautiful girls are raised to be loved?”

    I hadn’t heard it.

    “What would your fantasy have been about me?” You ask, a little while later.

    “You mean, if we were still in high school and already knew each other, and it was a day like this?” You nod. “Well, first I would tell myself that I was going to your house, but you wouldn’t know that, of course. I would spend a lot of time picking out which clothes to wear. I would walk to where you live, even if it was far, listening to music, songs that I would later associate with this walk. They might even have been decided ahead of time. I would stop somewhere on the way just to wait, to build up desire and frustration. But I couldn’t take it. I’d have waited too long. So I’d run, I’d run the rest of the way. You’d see me from the window and wave. You’d come meet me at the door and offer me a glass of water. Since I’d been running, I’d ask to use your shower. You would be in your bedroom waiting, and I’d come in, wrapped in a towel. Silently you’d come toward me, or you’d just stand up not moving at all and I’d come toward you. When I got close, I’d let the towel fall, everything I was holding too, and I’d lift your shirt over your head. Then I’d press my body onto your chest, into your chest. I’d say, ‘let me make you feel so good.’ With the back of your hand you’d sweep the hair away from my shoulders and you’d kiss me and kiss me and kiss me.”

    I must have been picking at the grass while I was talking because a pile of lawn tips is in a heap on my lap. I look at your face, looking away and I cannot tell if you are afraid or very, very sad.

• • •