Katie Jean Shinkle's poem "No Half Measures" is explicitly influenced by Vince Gilligan's award-winning TV series Breaking Bad ("Today I am thinking / about Skyler White / the last time with Walter / the long long stare"). Her poem has been paired with an outfit from Thom Browne's spring/summer 2016 womenswear show. For this pairing, fans of the show will notice an immediate parallel: a nod to Walter's pork pie hat and its link to what I'll simply refer to as "Heisenberg." Like the nineteenth century pork pie hat, I wanted to also choose garments symbolic of the nineteenth century photographic process known as "daguerreotype" (i.e. "her daguerreotype eyes"). Browne's 2016 collection both deconstructs the traditional schoolgirl uniform while also paying homage to The Wizard of Oz (1939). From Oz to Ozymandias, this Breaking Bad-themed pairing represents fragmented identity, fractured reality, and "what's left of heart."
— Paul Cunningham, Editor
No Half Measures
Let’s play my favorite game
do you remember
I never took your hand
or maybe once
hotel stairs, early July
the joke starts with
I know you know
how to write a love poem
you have done it for others
but never for me
The punchline
goes a little something
like this
a funny thing
I forgot to tell you
I am giving up
Today I am thinking
about Skyler White
the last time with Walter
the long long stare
moldavite heart
or what’s left
of heart
after so much
straight people nonsense
her daguerreotype eyes
to know love like that
I don’t know what separates
the mock from the actual
except absolution
I wish for less apologies
and more resolve
I want to see
the porn clearly
without having to hold
the antenna
which is to say
Do you remember
the last time we talked
the pink tart sky
reminiscent of New Mexico
the O’Keeffe in the stairwell
How even at the height
of awe you could
make me laugh.
Do you know what
it is to be lonely
in the world?
To be afraid of consequence
before it arrives?
To pursue Eros
with such a destructive
flair it destroys all?
I did not take your hand
because which one
of us is the signal fire
and which one of us
is just trying
to get home,
you tell me
A funny thing I forgot
to mention
as Skyler aches for Walter
in disappointment
and acceptance
the furrowed elevens
make me fret
for Anna Gunn’s face
the deep lines
the hesitation catchy
like a fine sick
In the elevator
at the art museum
two Benjamin Franklin reenactors
bump against us
Let’s play
my favorite game
Do you remember
losing the limits of language
in a very Wittgensteinian way?
o I tried to compartment
all meaning, it never works
quite as we think it will
How was Skyler ever in love
like that, a god-command
so majestic one can only
assume to be of service
is the reason they are here
on this Earth
While I have you,
I forgot to ask,
do you love me yet?
Will you take my hand?
Or rather is this only
a beginning
and if this is only
a beginning
why am I already
at the end and gone.
Katie Jean Shinkle’s books and chapbooks include The Only Way Out is Through (YesYes Books, 2026), Transference (Gasher Press, 2025), and Tannery Bay (coauthored with Steven Dunn, FC2, 2024). She serves as co-poetry editor of DIAGRAM and teaches creative writing in East Texas.
