My Cardboard Balcony

Chewing Gristle by Belinda Roddie Battled Barry was chewing gristle off a hunchback bison's toe hoof, gill, while blowing bubbles through a cigarette that was open on both ends drooping sadly over a withered bouquet of white tulips drizzled with chocolate syrup from the back molars of Barry's gashed lips feverishly gnashing for a shred of meaty attention not the fat, fat, fat.

A crossfire medical examination made Lucy cross and Larry even crosser. The festering marks on the poor woman's hands never seemed to go away or lose their color. It was always red. Red, red, red. Very very red. Like a traffic light against the industry skyline of Los Angeles. Pastel red that grew warm sticky in polluted air. And always that tender stinging from the core of the wound to the very edges.

Existential by Belinda Roddie Existential old parental got a new teaching credential cost for it was exponential - it proved very consequential. To pay for the large tuition, he succumbed to superstitions, ammunition for decisions met with hard, bitter derision. Don't promote any religion. So now he's caused a commotion tried to work in locomotion, made a potion, brand new lotion, nothing sold, got no promotion. Existential old parental slowly went to badly mental, while that silly old credential withered on a willow shelf.

In the gallery, the paintings were melting. Not due to the hot sun, but due to the gaze of the surrealist, sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc imported from Italian (which he had surprisingly been able to sneak into the museum without anyone noticing. The guard even asked for a sip). As his Dalí-esque mustache bounced with excitement, he let his arms become crooked like the hands of the clock and tick tock, tick tock away.

The Open Suitcase by Belinda Roddie breathing before dying is a daunting task when all you have is a pack of stationery two pens and a Christmas card from a runaway mother who kissed you too tenderly with salt the scrapbook you had when you were three feet high a pair of stained glass sneakers watercolor waistcoat and a watch that has never told time and yet somehow this leather doppelganger of your past exploits boasts of a brand new era of diner conversations stale coffee cups and a tin can oozing molasses on the beaten railroad tracks it's almost as if the shoe prints form a face as you zip up the body bag and close your mind to the smell

The curse on her face was not beauty, nor was it ugliness. It was the expression of utmost fear - the painted panic like flaking rouge on two fat cheeks - that would not waver. All day and night, she stared through the window with two bulging eyes and pale cheekbones, lips quivering below her beaked nose. She was constantly afraid, and the terror never, ever ceased.

The red balloon had Mother's face on it. The green one had Father's. A strange pair of etched portraits bloated with the effects of helium. I couldn't turn my eyes away. The entire town was being cursed like this. It had started with a carnival. Now the balloons were circling the space. All with the faces of my friends and family. Blankly staring. Threatening to burst.