Breadcrumb #342

JESSICA CAROLINE

This is not a time to shoot the shit
That machretic droplet gone rogue
A set of affordances point out the obvious
Like you, I too do spin on the cusp
Like polyamory, or bitcoin, it will work once completely untethered.

Do we choose between more or less in sync
That's so funny, I was just writing you an email
Key is to hack away at regress
Living eternal on a Kurzweillian regime of supplements.

Thank you for making me thankful for mortality
We need not meet one last time
Don't you know already
Those are shaved peels
Reinforced debris
Inklings full.

 

• • •

Breadcrumb #341

KAILEY TEDESCO

my creators used their teeth
to bring my form
through a gauzy

membrane – 
a wilderness sprawls
over the hearth

& here I am kept
drying, upside down,
a flower to be pressed

under no real weight.
i came to you wrapped
in no blood

but my own & smelling
of pumpkin. what am i
if not a spell / a psalm /

something that isn’t there?
there are fires written
in my cursive. kneel

to them. the electric
of me conducts full
shadows & i

am only true
in that glow
of absence.

• • •

Breadcrumb #339

JAMES FOSTER

          A big red balloon floats up high,

          the string’s

         c

         u

          t,


                               twisting

                              heroically on,

                    battling the winds & rain & rain.

                       It pierces the blackened clouds

                              then gone.

                                  A

                               big

                            red

                            balloon floats up high,

                                        then pops in the sky.

• • •

Breadcrumb #338

COOPER WILHELM

If I could reappear an instant later clinging to the ceiling above trouble like a cat I’d still call out
for reassurance. Does this iMessage look infected? Do the poachers know my real name? Are
my sorrows still attached?

How unforgiving we can be. How thrashed. I’ve aligned myself with longing and worn regrets
around me like a sandwich board, and I’m doing that now, but I’ve decided that’s the past.

No more po-ems about fire, no more
parables of loneliness—rest easy,
ugly heart.

Only werewolves now.

Only howling to the kitchen so you rush back
in and do not miss the good parts.

Maybe a fake molar full of stem cells I can crack when under scrutiny so I could feel like I did
something and still retain my tooth. Maybe a kitten’s all I need.

This one time a man in an I Heart Jesus hat asked the kid next to him did I miss my stop

“Huh?”

Did I miss 42nd Street?

“Uh Yeah”

“Why’d you let me sleep?!”

The kid shrugged they didn’t know each other and Jesus Hat looked up
and asked sir (I’m not even 30)
sir (or 29) do you know what stop is next and
I didn’t know where we were together because I was writing this poem and I still am but I’ll stop.

• • •     • • •