Breadcrumb #319

AVANI PATEL

Are you sure it is safe?
I am sure,
You whispered,
If I am sure of anything, it is this, now

My feet were cold but the sand was warm
The waves waved, beckoned, tickled my toes so I laughed

Just jump
So I did

And we swam
Through uncertain waters and merciless waves we swam
Drowning and tumbling and calling it swimming.

We stopped.

Looked forward, back

Shore looked different now

Changing each time we waded these waters

The waves grew tired, kissing,

Gently, pulling away when needed.

I looked at you – covered in casualties of sea

Can you see?
I could not

Are you there?
You were not

So I saw

And swam back

To my sure.

• • •

Breadcrumb #318

DEVAN ROLLYSON

The one
Texts me poetry-
Words hot
 Bourbon fire.
He says
Even in dreams
We are one. 

The one
Gives me his cock,
Not his cum. 
Because, 
I have always
Loved tragedies. 

The one
Paints me like
The Kiss.
Gets me off with
 Hands that are calloused
From past lovers.
Hands that have
Touched velvet,
Touched my soul.

The one
Is tortured
The way all
Artists are. 

I hate him
The most,
Because he is
My mirror.
Reflecting
Delusion after delusion.

The one
Journals his conquests-

But

I am not one of his
French girls
To be written about, 
Finite and pressed neatly
Into the spine of what
Might as well be
His Bible.

• • •

Breadcrumb #315

MEENA ROLDAN

There’s nothing sweet in revenge.
It’s boiling blood. Insatiable thirst.
An incapacitating desire to decapitate,
it’s tongue-tied. Its limbs are tangled.
There’s no easy way to untie the mind
of this knot. It’s self-inflicting and monotonous.
I replay the confrontation in loops in my head.
Devising elaborate boobytraps, extravagant
disembowelments with rusted tools,
and words to kill. I want to erase the
perpetrator for fear of erasing myself-
Want to shove the drugs down his throat
in return and watch him squirm under
the discomforting ecstasy then slip into
almost OD- Want to watch his skin turn green.
But there’s no pleasure in that. It’s survival
instinct. If you’re still alive inside, the animal
who attacked you turned you savage.
Call it disproportionate. Call me sadistic.
Question his motives, and judge if my reaction
is equal. Call me masochistic. Call me broken.
Call me disillusioned with my gory imagination.
I’m not saying it’s pretty. Just necessary to move on.

• • •