T h e T r a i l Vol. 2

A Breadcrumbs Mag Publication #64

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A Note From the Editor

Welcome to the second edition of our quarterly zine, The Trail. In it you’ll find a selection of poetry and prose created by contributors to our twice-weekly blog, BreadcrumbsMag.com. Each artist was tasked with taking a phrase, image, or object from an earlier piece and creating something entirely new from the inspiration found there. Pieces on the site are published in the order they’re received and link back to the ones that inspire them, but are presented in a more sporadic format here.

What began as little more than a simple writing prompt has steadily transformed into a full-fledged community of disparate collaborators. I’m filled with pride every time I receive a new submission, and am ecstatic to see where each person has decided to go with their work. I’m so grateful to all of you for taking the time to create or read or look at or otherwise consume one of our breadcrumbs. It’s been a wonderful experience for us. I hope you feel the same and consider contributing to our “trail” as we continue to grow and expand in the weeks (months…years…) to come.

Visit us online at: www.BreadcrumbsMag.com.

Submit your Breadcrumb here: submissions@breadcrumbsmag.com (be sure to include your name, a short bio, and the number of the piece you drew inspiration from). *See the back cover for a key explaining where the inspiration for each piece comes from. —Bob Raymonda

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

RACHEL DREIMILLER COVER PAGE

CHRISTIE DONATO 5

@333333333433333 9

DANIELLE VILLANO 14

KYLE CANGILLA 18

JESSICA SCHNEIDER 19

JEN WINSTON 22

DANIEL GRJONKO 26

FREDDIE MOORE 28

SAM TWARDY TRAIL MAP

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BREADCRUMB #44

CHRISTIE DONATO

“You know how it feels when you focus a little too hard on the way

your teeth are set? You move your bottom row a little forward, or a little

backwards. You try to match up your two rows of teeth, but then it feels

all weird and you can’t remember where your teeth are supposed to go

anymore.”

“Not really.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s just how I felt the day the sky ripped open and the

golden ships came through with…well, we know what they are now, but we

didn’t then.”

“The ships with the raiders.”

“Yes. They came through almost immediately. I know because I was

watching.”

Judy stopped speaking abruptly and stared over Ana’s shoulder. Judy

behaved like everyone Ana had ever met who witnessed the universe split

open. A little haunted. A little bit like they would never be the same.

Ana coughed lightly, and pulled Lily — her small, floppy dog — onto

her lap. Her mother had been right about the world beyond their small

town in West Virginia. They hadn’t even known what was happening at the

time. Some kind of nuclear bomb had wiped out half the town, she’d been

told by the adults.

“How long did you watch for?” she finally asked.

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“I couldn’t even tell you. Maybe hours. I didn’t know what to do.” Judy

made eye contact with Ana once more. “I hid in an alleyway and just stared

up. Finally, I worked up the courage to walk home. When I got there the

apartment was empty. The lights were all off, and no one had even bothered

to lock the door. I remember it was dusk, and there was still just enough

light coming in through the gate over our fire escape window in the kitchen

that I could at least see where I was going. I waited for them that night

because I thought that maybe they were coming back. My dad, at least,

would come back for me. I ended up waiting in that apartment for weeks. I

thought that they would know I was there. I didn’t dare turn on any lights,

or even look out the windows, because I was afraid someone would come

and take me away. I don’t know why I thought that, but it seemed like a real

threat at the time. Anyway, first I ate all the leftovers in the fridge. Cold.

Then I moved on to the snacks and canned goods. Everything cold. My

stomach was always upset.”

“When did you leave?”

“No one ever came for me. I ran out of food, and I knew I’d have to

leave if I wanted to live.”

“And you did want to live?” Ana prompted.

“It never occurred to me that I shouldn’t.”

There was a moment of silence while both girls mulled that over. Ana

decided it was a subject best left alone for now.

“You know why they never came back, don’t you?” Ana asked instead.

“Yeah,” Judy said, but then shook her head. “I mean, no. I never actually

looked for their names on the lists of the deceased. Sometimes I want to,

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but I can’t tell which scenario I prefer: my parents leaving me to die, or

dying themselves.”

“I don’t think it’s a question of preference. Don’t you want to know the

truth?”

“Does it matter? I don’t think it does. I don’t need to know, definitively,

one way or the other. The outcome is the same. My parents are gone, and

the world is different now.”

Ana gripped Lily a little tighter in her arms, afraid she might say

something she wouldn’t be able to take back. Judy, meanwhile, was playing

with a loose thread in her sweater, twisting the string around her pinky

finger over and over again.

“Do you know how I found this place?” Judy said, as if she were a little

bit proud of this bit.

Ana shook her head.

“I left the apartment and went to the nearest subway. I spent a little bit

of time on the platform, deciding what to do. There were no trains coming,

which I figured would be the case. I needed to make sure, though, so I

waited and waited. When I was absolutely positive, I sat down on the edge

of the platform, with my feet dangling over the tracks. There was a buildup

of really smelly, weeks-old garbage. It took everything in me to do it, but I

jumped down onto the tracks. I picked a direction and just walked. I think

I was trying to just get off the island, but honestly, who knows what I was

thinking at the time. It was dark, and there were rats everywhere, but I was

alone apart from them. The garbage-rainwater mixture soaked through my

shoes and socks as I walked. I could feel it between my toes, and it smelled

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so bad. I just started to cry.

“There was something about the trash juice and the dark that was so

repulsive that it triggered this strong emotional response in a way that being

left alone for weeks hadn’t done. I cried, and walked, and threw up a couple

times, and kept walking until David found me. He brought me here.”

Ana didn’t say anything. Here was the sanctuary for those who had not

been successfully removed from Manhattan.

“Is that what happened where you’re from? With the sky and the

evacuations?” Judy asked.

“No. Not at all,” Ana said.

• • •

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BREADCRUMB #38

@333333333433333

312

11:28 PM unsure, theyre ending up there eventually

11:30 PM why do you feel shitty and stupid

11:31 PM im sorry you feel shitty and stupid

11:31 PM youre not shitty nor stupid

11:34 PM do you want to meet up

11:40 PM dont

11:42 PM it sounds like you dont want to see me or else... youd... see me...

like

11:53 PM i feel terrible

12:11 AM i feel like i would have a better time with you

12:12 AM yeah i want to do that

12:14 AM like not hanging out is more of a bummer, idk, ok

12:16 AM yeah

12:19 AM jesus youre just laying there and not seeing me

12:26 AM just invite me over

12:29 AM yeah thats fine with me

12:33 AM yeah can i come over

12:36 AM i could take a cab

12:38 AM this is dumb12:39 AM i mean like this is dumb i want to go im

cool w it

12:43 AM cmon

12:46 AM please tell me where to go or directly tell me to give up

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12:50 AM i feel like i wouldnt see you again if i dont see you now

12:58 AM i feel like i would be fine with me, i would know what i was

getting into, i feel bad because i only saw you for like two hours, feel very

disappointed

1:02 AM yeah i mean i feel hurt

1:03 AM i know youre telling me not to take it personally but i like, idk,

cant not

1:07 AM youre saying it’s not worth it when i feel it is, so yeah, hurt, but im

not going to bully you into liking me

1:08 AM feel embarrassed now

1:11 AM i wish you said that before we texted for two hours

1:12 AM i mean maybe you did, whatever, ok get some sleep

631

when i was on mushrooms i wanted to “make it stop”

when i was on mushrooms i wanted someone to “yell facts at me”

i threw up in my bathroom to make it stop and hallucinated my vomit

swirling, i saw gifs behind my eyes in the bathroom

i put myself to bed

at ninth avenue saloon megan said take the whole bag and gian showed us a

picture of his mom with her head split open and sam did coke on the open

table

i’m twenty-four

in the bed you said “talk in facts”

when i buried my head in my covers

and “you can talk for three hours something that shouldnt be three hours”

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i said i was thinking out loud and you said when do you not

i sat on the scaffolding while you smoked, holding the cigarette in the

corner of your mouth, holding your phone, walking backward,

you came back, shaking your head - “head down, awkward smile”

you said

you need to eat weve been hanging out all day and you havent eaten

we ordered and you kept on saying you’d leave and you tried to take a

picture through the window from the balcony of me at the computer but i

ruined it but you stayed over

you called me an old soul at rudy’s bar and grill at 627 9th avenue, 10036

you said

there’s something about you

youre cute

Did you know that you told me you “really liked me” in your sleep last

night?

and when I asked you if you were asleep or not you said about 2 full

sentences of pure nonsense

in the beer aisle you said “ my pictures dont go online”

you sent me the three pictures in a text message

and i cut you off to kiss you we were drunk

i changed my facebook profile photo and got twenty-four likes

we smoked weed on my terrace and i leaned on your shoulder my ears

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popped

i felt that too, you said, that change in pressure

say said that i did that thing with your mouth to pop your ears

you said youre kind. the harshness. you come off as. you dont come off as i

said, i come off as harsh, you said, the harshness is just confidence

coughing i went inside to get water and came back barefoot on the concrete

and said my moms last wish would be my inability to smoke

i wish i was still 23

Not me

I would never have met you. 23 is gross.

you said say facts

you said you should grow herbs

i said i wanted to my mom grew herbs

you said you grow herbs on your balcony

peppers basil tomatoes

you said “pretending you dont know how to smoke”

on the balcony you also said i was brash and kind, but my harshness was

just confidence, that i am kind

you said “when did i say that”

we were falling asleep to pete and pete and i asked you if your reply two

weeks ago to my text message was sarcastic and you said no

You also told me I was perfect in your sleep last night

i fell asleep in your shirt and you didnt notice and woke up with you and

thought “medicine”

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last night i woke up at the ring of the two minute reminder of your text sent

at 1:32 am and i said hi i dont hate you

i dont know is it that i want to do whatever i want

im unsure if my cat is peeing in my bed when im away or asleep

and im unsure if it’s because i put a lid on her litter or took her off wet food

so she’s stop expecting it

every morning and every night

but now whenever i pee she jumps into the tub

stares at the faucet

and runs away when i turn it on

last night on the balcony he smoked a cigarette squatting on his knees and

laughed and

• • •

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BREADCRUMB #74

DANIELLE VILL ANO

In the hospital we are only allowed to see you after we’ve disrobed and we’ve

scrubbed ourselves with disinfectant. The disinfectant smells like lemons,

which is an interesting touch considering the last crop of lemons fell —

rotting — off their trees five years ago. A year or two before now and that

realization would’ve stung like citrus in a fresh cut, but now there’s only a

slow burn behind my eyes that lessens when I blink.

So on go the plastic undergarments. They are sexless, nude colored, and

they squeak modestly as we change with our backs to each other. Then the

zippered plastic suits. The gloves that, in another time, would be associated

with washing dishes. Now they are what we use to reach out and touch

those of us who weren’t so lucky.

You weren’t so lucky, darling.

In through the airlock chamber, we are propelled forward by an orderly

who hums under his breath. The sound is echoing and strange through the

mask he wears over his mouth. We are propelled forward by routine and

a sense of duty. Fridays have been — without fail — visiting days for the

last five years. Your daughter is 15 years old now, you know. We got in a

fight on the car ride here, because she wanted to go to the movies with her

friends. I think she might love a boy. Does she ever tell you anything about

that, when she whispers at you through the glass partition? I always stand a

little bit off, so she can feel like she can share secrets with you, if she wants

to. But truth is? I’d be devastated if she did.

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I find it easier to talk to you here, in my head, rather than when I’m

sitting next to you. But here we are; we’re rounding the corner and coming

up to the glass. I shut my eyes as I walk because I know how many steps I’ll

have to take before my gloved hands meet the glass (35), and I know exactly

what I’ll see when I get there (you, underneath the blankets, which are

pulled up to your chin).

And then I have to look, because I know you expect it. You’re looking

at us now. You blink your naked eyelids. We are now used to seeing you

without your eyelashes.

Those of us infected by the blight woke up the next day to stiff faces,

and dry eyes, and eyelashes that felt brittle like spiders’ legs. I remember you

asked if I had any eye drops. “I want to loosen things up,” you’d said. I told

you I’d put them on the shopping list. The list stayed stuck to the fridge for

months; I never bought the eye drops.

Back to the eyelashes: There was a universal quivering, a spasm that

touched those who had been unknowingly infected, and all at once the

lashes of those people broke off onto the floor. It was a normal afternoon,

before that happened. People were eating in the food court at the mall and

riding bicycles on the sidewalks. Suddenly there were spiders’ legs sticking

up out of the chicken chow mein. Pedestrians were spattered with eyelashes

from the bikers who pedaled by. They were sweeping little black bristles off

the streets for a whole day afterwards.

I brought you to the emergency room to get checked out, but the line

was already out the door. I had to leave to pick up our daughter from

school; the school had called for an early dismissal. Confusion buzzed

through the air. When I was walking our daughter to the car I saw a woman

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cover her mouth, saw her fingers shake and drop something, clinking like

ice cubes, to the pavement. When she howled, her open mouth was a

gaping black hole, and I knew the things clink-clinking on the pavement

were her teeth.

I also knew — the thought made my stomach churn — that by the time

we got back to the hospital your teeth would be gone from your mouth. I

was hoping you’d have the sense to sweep them up, so as not to scare your

daughter. But they were still in a pile in front of you, and you had covered

your face with your hands.

I can’t describe what it feels like when you find your husband seated in

the same waiting room chair and he opens his mouth to ask “Why?” All I

can say is you suddenly know what he will look like if he lives to be very,

very old, and the idea is not a comfort.

What I can say now is this: You do not look very, very old. In fact, you

look incredibly young. You are constantly molting, shedding your skin. Your

daughter says around school they call those who were infected “snakes.”

Your face is pink and plump, no longer weathered by the elements. Your

eyes are clear. The nurses have to administer eye drops often since your

lashes are no longer around to protect your eyes. Your fingernails grow

quickly and fall off; they are painful pink pads for a day or two, and then

the nails grow back even stronger.

Recently on a talk show a comedian said that she wished she’d been

infected by the blight.

“Sure, it’s been hell on the economy, and our agriculture, and our ability

to reproduce as a human race, but have you seen what it’s done to their

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skin?”

I reach my gloved hand through the slot in the glass near your bedside,

and you grasp at it with eager fingers. It is a pink pad day, and you wince a

little bit, showing your gums. You smile at me with your eyes. It’s easier that

way.

I talk at you for a little bit about the softer stories on the local news, and

about the movies that are coming out in theaters. Despite all the damage

our society has taken, our desire for action movies has only intensified. We

want larger-than-life heroes. We want sweat. We want machismo. I try not

to think about how I used to compare the cleft in your chin to that movie

star’s. Your skin is so soft now; the cleft is nearly gone, anyway.

I try not to think about how we used to cocoon ourselves in our bed on

weekend mornings, clutching coffee mugs and each other, shuffling around

the Sunday paper. I try not to think about how your lashes used to brush

my cheek in an Eskimo kiss that made me giggle like a schoolgirl. I try not

to think about the way my hands cupped your face before I’d kiss you on

the mouth, or how I’d smile into your teeth. I wonder if we were placed in a

dark room — would I know who you were by the feel of your face? Would

my fingertips recognize your skin?

I move aside, worn out, to let your daughter speak to you. She is all

dramatic sighs and jerky movements, making me relieved that some things

— like teenagers — don’t change, even in the face of a worldwide disaster.

• • •

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BREADCRUMB #54

KYLE CANGILL A

When I was four I rammed my head into a door frame

I was running as only a child can

sporadic

weightless

uncontrolled. Flailing with joy

The door frame was just a thing

static and real and true

I ran up and met the thing at full speed

Hit myself right down the middle of my forehead

For all my flailing I could not see the cruel thing that stood before me

that stopped me

The door frame was just a thing

and I was a child

who was no longer weightless.

• • •

19

BREADCRUMB #80

JESSICA SCHNEIDER

I try kissing you, as I normally do when I want you to remember I exist.

You turn your head with a smile and place your hand on my thigh. Without

words you say “not now,” which is a phrase, a concept, a feeling I have

grown used to in loving you.

But I am persistent.

Feel my warmth. Feel my love. Remember me. Remember that I love

you.

I touch your face. Maybe you have a beard; maybe you’ve shaved it. I

tend to remember you with a beard, because I love the way there’s a certain

pain every time we kiss, a physical pain that mimics what happens inside

me. A discomfort I am addicted to, like flossing until I see blood.

My thumb traces the scar that runs through your right eyebrow.

“Tell me the story again.”

“It’s not much of a story.” You let out a sound somewhere between a scoff

and a laugh. Without words, you say “not now.”

“Oh, come on! It makes me smile.” I am persistent.

“I was like 4 or 5. It was before my mom left and Mike stole one of my

Nintendo controllers when I beat him at Street Fighter,” you begin with a

smile, not a smile for me, but a smile for a simpler time, a happier time.

“I always tripped over my own feet. I guess I hadn’t grown into them yet.

Anyway, he was running off with the controller and I grabbed the wire

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that was dangling behind him. I wasn’t looking and I ran right into the

doorframe. Blood was everywhere. And right as I fell on my ass, Mike

shouted ‘HADOUKEN!’ like Ryu from Street Fighter. It was really funny

and I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t stop crying.”

I smile, like I do every time you humor me. I like imagining you as a

child. Your scrawny legs and tiny ankles that make your basketball shoes

look so big. Your curly hair that grows upward, like the tall sculpted bushes

that grow and shrink outside the gated communities neither of us grew

up in. You — alone — the youngest of the children who your mother

abandoned. You — the only product of your mother and father’s marriage

— two people who never learned to love. Not one another, and not you.

There you are, stepping off the school bus with your tall hair and your

big shoes, at age 6, a latchkey kid. You are trying to make sense of why

half of the stuff that once filled the empty space of your father’s home is

now gone. You tell your neighbor you thought you had been robbed. She

hugs you until you put the pieces together and realize your mother has left

you. Left the brothers and sisters you grew to call family — the sons and

daughters of a man who is not your father, a man you never met, but might

as well love you the same as your own. Both men are absent in your life; it’s

just that one manages to do so while sitting at the same dinner table. There

you are — alone. How I fear you feel when you sit at the same dinner table

with me. Afraid you’ll come home to one less toothbrush in your bathroom,

to missing framed photos, to a half-empty top drawer where I keep my most

comfortable T-shirts that always end up smelling like a strange combination

of the two of us.

“Why do you like that story so much?” you say, shaking your head, in

21

confusion or annoyance, I can never tell with you.

“I like to imagine I was there,” I say, tracing the scar again. “Then

maybe…”

I think about how I could have helped you. I could have stopped the

bleeding or held your hand while you cried. I could have ran and gotten

your mother, and convinced her to care, to stay. To not just follow the steps

a parent knows to follow when a child is hurt, but to really care — to stitch

above your teddy bear’s eye so he had a scar just like you — you know,

to really, really care. I could have stood by your side as you scanned the

half-empty rooms of your father’s home, wondering where your mother’s

hairbrush, throw pillows, and floral loveseat had gone. And I would have

been the one to hold you until you realized she, too, was gone.

“It’s OK.” You smile at me, knowing that I live in a constant state of guilt

for never loving you enough to make up for the years you never knew love.

I run my fingers through your hair, as I often do when I want you to

remember that I’m still here. That my toothbrush, my most comfortable

shirts, and my dark brown hair that clogs your shower drain are all still here.

I pull my body close to yours, but you’ll only let me get so close.

Feel my warmth. Feel my love. Remember me. Remember that I love

you.

You are sure to leave space between our bodies. Without words you say

“not now.”

• • •

22

BREADCRUMB #43

JEN WINSTON

They met at a bar because neither of them wanted to waste a good date idea

on someone they met online. They both knew the odds were slim for second

dates (let alone thirds), so it didn’t make sense to spend time and money

wandering around a unique museum together.

The bar was Nitecap on the Lower East, her choice. According to both

Yelp and her junior year at NYU, it was a “clean dive” (she liked oxymorons)

that served an $18 “orange wine” (if not perfect oxymorons, at least things

that felt wrong). That wine was a security blanket — one of her favorite

tastes in the city and worth the trip in itself: a shining half orb for her to

cradle, chug, and sign for. It was expensive, but it was a sure bet — the rest

of the night was just a gamble, another Wednesday fed to the wolves.

They’d met on a new app called RightPlace. No one could see the

app’s intentions just yet — whether it was for hookups, long-term stuff,

or gamified Tinder-esque swiping — but it was so controversial that even

people in relationships could tell you how it worked. It tracked your

location, and if you had three locations in common with someone, the

two of you were a match. Tara’s couple friends said the app was creepy,

calling it “an invasion of privacy.” “But isn’t invasion of privacy the point of

relationships?” she’d said. Her couple friends had changed the subject.

Thus, instead of Leonard Cohen, she and J (according to a brief chat

conversation, that was his full name) had two bookstores and a Panera

Bread in common. She decided to look past the Panera Bread and hoped

he’d do the same.

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The last time she’d had Sex was two months ago. She’d met that guy in

person, the way she kind of still believed love had to be done. But when she

met men in person, she became enamored with the idea of having met in

person. She would write a little fairy tale with a happy ending, fall too hard,

and move too fast. She usually slept with them that night and followed

them on Instagram the next morning, never sure which made her seem

easier.

Once Tara got off the subway, she tried not to look at her phone. Not

texting made her feel powerful; gave her command. Men could sense a lot

of things, her mother used to tell her. Especially willpower, and she needed

every ounce of fake willpower she could get.

It was 9:07 — she was appropriately late; he would be there first. She

wanted a cigarette for the first time in years, but a bodega run would have

made her inappropriately late, and besides, she didn’t know his opinion on

smoking yet. Too many risks, and none of them were lung cancer.

Two months ago, just after having The Sex, she’d made a mistake. They’d

been lying there, breathing and putting off dealing with the condom, and

she’d said to the guy, “You’re good at Sex.” Her mother had always told her

to give compliments, said people liked to hear nice things about themselves.

But only seconds after delivering this one, she realized the damage it had

done:

1. It implied that this Sex was better than her usual Sex.

2. That meant that, if he didn’t think this Sex had been good, they

could both ascertain that her usual Sex was bad Sex.

3. It put the ball in his court: She now needed him to say “you too,”

24

not because she wanted to hear she was good, but because it would level

things out, and she could go back to thinking of her Sex life as, at the very

least, average.

He tugged the condom off and tossed it onto her floor, whispering the

words “thank you.”

“Tara?” A blonde guy seated alone waved. To say her name out loud like

that, inflection rising at the end, meant telling the whole bar that they were

just meeting for the first time. She sighed, imagining the spectator couples

that would go home and talk about the “awkward online date in the corner.”

They would discuss the vulgarity of dating apps; how they’re all designed

based on shticks and put into practice by people whose libidos are low

because they aren’t getting any. They would remind each other how lucky

they were to have met in person.

“Hey,” Tara said, scooting into the booth. He looked weirder than his

pictures — alien-like, skinnier. She couldn’t tell where his eyes pointed and

his hair was gelled, albeit slightly, in a bad way. The booth was tiny and their

knees touched.

“Do you need a drink?” He looked better when he smiled, but not by

much.

“I do, but I’m not gonna make you buy it for me.” She’d been dreading

this moment — the reveal of her motives in choosing this location; having

it come across as a confession of the lack of faith she knew they shared. “I

picked this place because they have this amazing $18 wine.”

“$18?! For a bottle in this town? That’s a steal!”

As advanced as she fancied her sense of humor, she still liked it when

25

people referred to New York as a small village. Slightly warmer inside, she

considered how to let him down.

“No…it’s $18 a glass.” Before he could flip the table in anger: “I know,

it’s absurd.”

“Oh. Shit.” He stared down, she assumed, to plot his escape from the

tiny booth. “Must be good, then,” he said. ”I’ll get two.”

Curveball from the dude she’d “met” at Panera! He’d roll with it. Maybe

they both needed something external to get them through the night.

“Awesome — ask for the orange one.”

Their legs stayed staggered like unwilling watch gears, and it took him

two full minutes to wiggle out. They laughed, then Tara watched him at the

bar — cool and competent, a good height, and slightly weathered in all the

right places. Maybe that was why they called it RightPlace, she wondered.

Already she found herself ignoring his hair.

It took him a while to get served, especially for a Wednesday. She

considered that perhaps he didn’t have what it took and felt her fingers

itch for her phone. Still determined not to use it, she let her mind drift,

inevitably to The Sex — gritty, sweaty, with an element of destiny. She

clenched her legs and chewed her tongue, then stared at a guy across the

room, wondering if he was alone by choice.

• • •

26

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.

27

But logic offends the other.

It must.

And so I hear myself screaming

When did I say that?

• • •

28

BREADCRUMB #52

FREDDIE MOORE

In the dream, you are a girl named Ruthie Catskill.

You have no idea why the dream has given you a full name, but there

are people saying it above you. They’re concerned. You are on a stretcher

going down the long halls of a hospital. Everything is fast and white the way

you’ve seen it in films.

The nurses say something about The Blast. Leaking gas... An old

apartment building... Everything they say is muffled. You think you hear

something about your pulse, convulsion, maybe something about your tibia.

There’s something comedic about the whole thing, almost like that one

dream where you could speak Spanish fluently. Everyone is far more frantic

than they should be, realistically. Nobody seems to know what he or she is

doing.

Your left ear hurts. It feels like it’s been pumped full of wax and dulled

by an amplifier. You are sure you feel it. You go to touch it, but the nurses

pull your hands down back to your sides.

Sometimes you can see outside yourself. You can see this girl Ruthie.

You’re a girl with freckles now, with brown hair, tied back in braids. Your

ears are so small. Your hands are so small.

Everything turns to white, and then you’re her again, this time sitting on

the waxed paper doctors roll out for checkups. You pull the fine hair at the

end of your braid. When you look up, the doctor is there in front of you

with a stethoscope slithering over his white jacket.

29

He smiles like he’s saying “I don’t bite.” He covers your right ear and

talks into your left. You can see his mouth moving. You already know what

he’s asking.

“I can’t hear a word,” you say, without hearing yourself.

He nods and trashes his plastic gloves.

You think you remember hearing tibia back in the halls of the hospital

and you wonder where you can find it on your small body. You wonder if

it’s OK. All you smell is disinfectant. You can taste it in your mouth.

You look up to ask him, but he isn’t there. You take your pointer fingers

to the small bit of cartilage by the opening of each ear, and plug them up

with the flap. You open and close your ears, repeating until it’s like an ocean

of sound. It only fills half of you.

You are afraid people will start saying things to your bad ear on purpose

Nobody tells you anything.

You think about going home. You think about going home ‘til you

realize it isn’t Ruthie’s home you’re thinking of — it’s something resembling

the house you grew up in or maybe the apartment where you live now. It’s

those hardwood floors. The red sleeping bag. You can’t reimagine home, not

as Ruthie, not even with the part of your mind that dreams.

In bed, with your eyes awake, you assure yourself that your bones are all

intact and open and close your ears the way you did in the dream, the way

you would when you were little, humming and letting the sound wash in.

• • •

#1 -100 CONTRIBUTOR L IST

BOB R AYMONDA MATT ALEXANDER KIM DIETZ V I ANDALL AS RICO TOM DARIN L ISKEYDANIEL TOY COLIN RICHARD JAMESJEN WINSTON JULIA ROBINSONANNA P ICAGLI SAMANTHA JACKSL ANDTR AVIS SAMUEL R ACHEL DREIMILLERBRYAN GAMBLE ROSS KNAPPKRIZTILE JUNIO SCARLET GOMEZMARLON CO CHRISTINE STODDARDJOSH RUBINO JOANNA C . VALENTEADAM R AYMONDA JD DEHARTWENDY O ’SULLIVAN KATIE NAUMMADELEINE HARRIGTON BARB ROSINSKI BENINCASADAN POORMAN SHELBY LEWISSAM TWARDY ANDREW MARINACCIOCHRISTINA MANOL ATOS MEREDITH C . JONESDANIELLE VILL ANO BRITTANY ANN COOLAMY CREHORE JESSICA SCHNEIDERPETER SCHR ANZ STELL A PADNOS -SHEADANIEL GRJONKO RUSS COPE@333333333433333 STACY SKOLNIKCHRISTIE DONATO BRITTANY DIGIACOMOMICHELLE HAMMER RYAN EVANSGER ARD SARNAT D .C . WILTSHIRERUSS BICKERSTAFF JOSH KRIGMANROBIN WYATT DUNN EVAN CARDONAKATIE LEWINGTON V INCENT PERRETTAFREDDIE MOORE CHRISTA BRENNANR ACHEL HAUER KEVIN ALEXANDERKYLE CANGILL A T YLER NAUGLE

Breadcrumbs Mag Is:

BOB RAYMONDA | Founding Editor. He wars over dominance with his cat.

DANIEL TOY | Content Editor & Social Media Manager. He eats chicken.

SAM T WARDY | Graphic Designer & Layout Editor. Baby animal enthusiast.

ADAM RAYMONDA | Producer & Audio Engineer. Is pretty fond of sounds.

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Trail 1

Trail 2

Trail 3

Trail 4

Trail 5

#38 inspired #54 #54 inspired #80

#38 inspired #71

#38 inspired #43

#52 inspired #74

#44 inspired #64