Breadcrumb #390

BOSTON GORDON

Mine wasn’t general, in fact I came out
a rotten plum. I’d suffocated in the womb.
My first two days were spent in an oxygen box.
If I close my eyes I create memory
of the tiny hiss of oxygen,

of my skin turning purple,
to blue, to pink, like morning. The thing I like to say
is that I came out dead, but that’s not really
the truth. Did I come out dishonest?
I imagined I should tell you this story, darling,

so I’m writing you this postcard. I stole it
from a gift shop like a bowerbird
on a mission. I guess I should feel
something about that. I don’t. Lying again.
Stealing again. I’m not sure what’s the fib.

Sorry for always doing things I don’t
want to. I say this in French, or the first
word in French, which is a lot like you
teaching me how to love in another
language. We were in a city I don’t remember

this city being. Do you remember?
There’s hardly room to fit this all on the card.
I will keep it brief. Yesterday I was a bad kid.
A man on 4th street stared at me
And mouthed who’s this guy?

He delivers line this and tosses an empty can.
And I think yeah who is he as I trip.
I walk around in this body, feeling
like a still-live animal, that everyone
is trying to taxidermy.

I am a boy. You told me so. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed,
and your mouth wouldn’t stop so you wanted
to take it all back. You had a tarot card
that told you to practice patience so you tried.
The room was a pharmacy of sweaty bodies.

It was July, it was the holiday. I couldn’t
believe you wanted me here on your shoulders.
I thought anyone here could have a mouth.
So take it back, I have this delivery
for you. I always overpay the postage.

I don’t remember where to sign it.
Sign me again. Like you did before
with the indelible marker. For days
I watched the eddy of black wash
down the drain. I thought you were coming

over. I thought you were staying longer.
I thought I would yawn again. Please,
I have a ballpoint and inky fingers.
Be warm-blooded, be wet-tongued,
be the one who sleeps outside the post office for me.

• • •

Breadcrumb #389

MADELINE ANTHES

You tell me that the necks warp over time. They swell up and twist, as any wood does, when the humidity changes.

    I think of my hair and how it curls in the summer. How limp it is in the winter. How water can make us look different. How much I’ve changed since I met you.

    I try to focus on what you’re saying.

    You are running your hand along the guitar, showing me places the neck is crooked. “There’s a truss rod inside the necks of newer guitars. It helps keep the structure over time.” You’re talking but I’m not really listening. I’m watching the way your fingers trace along the strings, smooth and sure. The way your eyes look down the length of the guitar, finding flaws I can’t see.

    “It looks straight to me,” I tell you.

    “Look closer,” you say.

#

    The Dairy Queen is across the street from the slaughterhouse, and we sit on the circular plastic table near the parking lot. I want your feet to bump into mine, but they’re tucked underneath you.

    We could always tell when it was a slaughter day. The air smells thick and tinny, like dirt and rot. It clings to clothes, to the interior of cars. I fan my sundress around my legs, stirring the air and bringing a waft of decay to my nose. We are used to the smell.

    “Do you think they know?” I ask you. You are eating a vanilla cone. It’s August in southern Ohio, and your cone is melting faster than you can lick.

    I want to take one of your sticky fingers into my mouth and taste the vanilla.

    “The pigs? I don’t know, maybe. They were bred for this.”

    It is getting dark and the cicadas’ screams are slowing to a rattle.  The night creatures would start their chorus soon, filling our silences.

#

    You always use scented plug ins, so your apartment smells like pine.

    It’s a tiny apartment, but you are so meticulous it feels larger. The sink is clean and your bed is always made.

    “Do you even live here?” I ask you, looking at the neatly stacked books on the bedside table.

    You don’t laugh. “Of course I do. I just like my things where they belong. Each thing in the proper place.”

    “I try to be clean,” I say.

    You pull me into a hug. “I like you clean or dirty. I just like you.”

    Something inside me uncurls, melting under my skin.

#

    We live in farmlands but don’t know any farmers. Our town is flat and long, pocketed with warehouses and chain food restaurants. It is all changing: stretches of cornfields churned up and turned into modular homes with a man-made lake in the center, an outlet mall replacing the burned out Chevy factory.

    The newness should be ugly, but it isn’t. Our town feels alive, a pulse throbbing below its shell.

    “We shouldn’t come here on slaughter days,” I say. “It feels wrong.”

    “Maybe not. But where else would we go?”

    You hand me a napkin so I can clean my hands.   

#

    I stay over so often now the apartment feels a bit mine, though you’ve never asked me to share it. I keep a spare toothbrush in your cabinet, some underwear in your drawer. I only leave the pretty kind -- black lace, polka dots.

“I keep a spare toothbrush in your cabinet, some underwear in your drawer.”

    I tuck these bits of me away into corners and behind closet doors.

    You pick up my wine glass before I’ve had the last sip, wiping down the coaster and table underneath it. You make the bed before I’ve finished brushing my teeth.

    “I’m trying,” I tell you.

    “I know,” you say.

#

    We walk along 2nd Street, one of the few older streets in town. There are large retro lightbulbs hung in strings along the street.

    I can still smell the slaughterhouse, but it’s fainter now. Just a hint amongst the smell of heat and my own sweat.

    I want you to stop me under the lights. I want you to hold my face in your hands and lean in and kiss me. I want it to be sweet and taste like ice cream and a hard day.

    But you take my hand and pull it towards your mouth, and that is enough for me.

#

    You keep your Christmas lights up all year. You tell me colorful lights shouldn’t be seasonal, and I don’t disagree. You turn them on after dinner, and they light up your living room in a dim hazy glow.

    You take out your guitar and I marvel at your arms as you sling the strap over your back. You have tattoos you don’t talk about, and they stand out stark against the wood of the guitar.

    Your fingers move fluidly and you close your eyes to sing. I don’t bother singing along; I don’t want to ruin your song.

    The guitar glitters in the lights and your cheeks are red and blue. You look flushed and I want to trace the circles of color along your cheeks.

    After the fifth song I reach forward and take your hand as you finger the strings. We grip the neck of the guitar together as I pull you towards my chest.

#

    You walk me to my apartment door. It’s only a few blocks away from yours, and I wish you’d asked me over. You kiss me goodnight and turn to go, but I don’t want to say goodbye.

    I ask you to wait with me, just wait, because I’m not ready to go inside.

    My air conditioning is too strong and it’s too bright and too quiet inside on my own.

    You put your arm around my shoulder and we lean against the brick of my building. My street is plain: a few townhouses, a few cars parked on the road. There is evidence of people everywhere, but we are alone.

    We look up at the stars together, and I search for something to say to make this moment feel right, important.  I want to ignore this twist inside of me, this spiral of doubt that threatens to uncurl.

    “You’re woven into me, you know,” I say, and it sounds false in my own ears.

    You give me a strained smile and pull me closer.

    I take in the weight of your arm, the feel of your fingertips across my shoulders, the rusty rich smell of slaughter that still haunts us. When you turn to go, I wonder the same thing I always do when you leave me: was this already over? Would I even know if it was?

• • •

Breadcrumb #387

RILEY KREMBIL

Shall I build you a castle by the lake? Pack stone-filled mud into bright coloured plastic to shape its foundation. Should I splash through the cold water and pick pretty pink stones to decorate its walls? Do everything like the first time. I will call you Queen and address you as your Majesty or your Grace. I will bow. I will kiss your hand and we will laugh. We will laugh and hear the high-pitched echoes of our youth. I will feel the ghost of nerves and excitement wondering if I should kiss you. If you would like that. Would you still like that? The wind picks up and your hair moves with it. It whips from right to left. You push it from your face. Small lines near your eyes are the only visible changes from then to now. It is the face I wake up to. The first thing I see every morning when I open my eyes, but here it all feels new again. I want to ask you if you feel that too, but the way you are staring out at the water stops the words. I don’t want to break your concentration.

“Small lines near your eyes are the only visible changes from then to now.”

    Shall I search the rocky shore for flat stones? Brush the dirt from their sides and pile them high so that we can spend the afternoon defying gravity skimming the water. I tried to impress you that day, but my first three tries landed with a heavy splash as if I had just opened my hand and let them fall. I could see the laughter pushing against your lips longing to be let loose, but you held them closed. Probably to protect my ego, but then you stepped forward and skipped your first stone three almost four times. I had hoped to step behind you and guide you like all the teenage boys in our year imagined doing. But there you were standing behind me, trying not to laugh as you showed me how to flick my wrist just right. There was so much laughter that day. I don’t know when we lost that. It would be easy to say that it died with him. Harder to admit it flickered out long before he existed. I want to ask you if you are thinking about him, but the tears in your eyes answer for me.

    Shall I strip down and run quickly into the rippling water shivering until my body warms against the cold? The sudden exposure of flesh would send giggles past your lips. I would try not to shiver too noticeably so that you would come and join me. You would scream and laugh all the way in. You would wrap your arms around me and we would be happy again. We would let go of everything that has happened. We could do that you know? Here in the place where we started, we could start again. We could end our suffering and become new from our tragedy. After months of silence we could scream. Scream into the wind. Scream until our throats taste bloody. Let loose the pain, the anger, and the quiet that has settled between us. We could come together in this expulsion. Or will this be the end? Is this stop the setting of our conclusion? Will we build our castle by the lake? Or will we say goodbye in the place our little prince never got to see? Well – What will it be?  

• • •

Breadcrumb #386

ALEXANDRIA MACHADO

I still have the dead bouquet
from the wedding we went to
together in November. You
were the most handsome
woman there—your pants
grabbed at the places you
sought to conceal and I wore
that slip I got in France.
All the while wondering
what it must feel like to glide
on black ice towards the alter
in the parking lot I said “absolutely”
to smoking a joint in the car, responded
quite vaguely to your concerning gestures.

The stars are relentless flecks, I thought.
We joked about stealing the flower
arrangements and toyed with the idea
of marrying in the woods. We would
have no shoes and you agreed to wear
linen and I would just wait to feel good
in something with gauze. You only
casually noticed how I left at certain songs
or how I’d tense a little when the mother
delivered her “I can’t believe how beautiful -
you are” speech. The truth is, only you
noticed. Now the hydrangeas guard the
window in our apartment, reflecting stain –
colored sun. Mimicking silk,
they used to live once.

• • •