The Soft Yes That Breaks You
On Breadcrumbing, Queer Longing, and Emotional Cowards with Chicken Coops
There’s a special kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from being left. It comes from being unwritten.
Someone builds a world with you: texts, gifts, slow-burning intimacy, long calls deep into the night. You start to believe it’s real.
Then, the moment you ask, “Can we meet?”
They hit the kill switch—and tell you it was never what you thought it was.
Welcome to breadcrumbing.
Also known as: psychological waterboarding for the romantically sincere.
I’ve always been bi.
More gay than straight, probably. But I stuck mostly to men—not because I liked them better, but because I could survive their rejection. I knew the shape of it. I was trained for it. I didn't care as much if they disappeared. And they always disappeared.
Rejection from women, though?
That hits different.
Because when a woman sees you—really sees you—it feels like resurrection. Like the goddess smiling down upon you.
When she pulls away, it feels like erasure from the center of the earth itself.
She was masc. Brilliant. Charismatic.
A PhD in social and environmental justice for the poor. Policy analyst who pushed legislation for things like medical ‘shrooms. Fished on the Pecos. Always threw them back.
Of course she did.
Chicana. Nuevo Mexicana. Rooted in the land.
Posting barefoot photos beside her newly built chicken coop.
She laughed at all my jokes.
Sent me a cord of firewood when I lived in rural New Mexico, because snow was in the forecast.
She sent me a hand-hewn mug with rabbits on it, when my book WHERE RABBITS GATHERED came out, because I’d told her I collected handmade artisan mugs.
She stayed on the phone for hours, always sounding just a breath away from something more. Hinted about all the things she could do with her tongue.
When she texted “come to lesbian prom with me,” I let myself imagine dancing with her.
I let myself hope.
She sent me photos of tuxedos she’d wear, and asked what color dress I’d want. When I told her, she sent me photos of coordinated cumberbunds and ties.
I finally worked up the nerve this week—despite chronic illness, fear, insecurity about my weight, trauma—to ask if we could meet. I even booked an Airbnb near her. I dyed my hair. I was ready.
That’s when she said it was best we never met in person.
“Our communication never went that way.”
And then—while I was in the ER with a blood clot—she texted to say she was canceling her subscription to my newsletter.
Breadcrumbing isn’t just leading someone on.
It’s crafting an entire intimacy aesthetic and bailing the second it costs
anything.
It’s giving someone little jolts of hope so they’ll keep showing up—but never asking anything of you.
It’s building emotional connection like a slow-burn romance, then claiming it was “just vibes” the moment the door opens.
And it hurts especially bad when it’s women doing it to other women.
Because it feels like betrayal by your own kind.
“You weren’t confused.
You were ready.
She wasn’t.
And she didn’t have the courage to say so.”
There’s a pattern I’m starting to see:
A lot of people who present as radically kind, progressive, spiritual, or “land-based” are emotionally avoidant as hell.
They can compost.
They can meditate.
They can quote Audre Lorde.
But they can’t tell you the truth when they’ve decided you’re too real for them.
This piece isn’t about her.
It’s about the whole damn dynamic.
About what happens when breadcrumbing is done with soft eyes and sustainability ethics.
When people call it good communication while they slowly rob you of clarity and self-worth.
No more breadcrumbs.
I want the whole damn meal.
The woman who shows up.
Who doesn’t ghost the second I ask for eye contact.
Who doesn’t withhold presence and then pretend it was never promised.
No more “soft yes” that turns into a slow no.
No more revisionist histories that erase what we both know was real.
“She didn’t ghost me. She rewrote me.”
And next time? I won’t be begging for closure.
I'll be walking away with the dignity of someone who finally knows:
I deserve more than potential. I deserve proof.
Tired of being rewritten by emotionally stunted spiritualists with chickens? Me too.
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This is heart-breaking. But your clarity is like a star. Thank you.
Get a dog , they really love you