My Cardboard Balcony

Thank God For Lesbians by Belinda Roddie Thank God for lesbians! They are so fair and ravishing, their bodies bending toward each shaft of light, their flesh yielding to air that's delicate like sand upon a shore. Two women kiss and fondle each bosom and coo to one another's lullabies that rise and fall like an echoing drum and have melodies that would make kings cry, dabbing at their thick and heavy brows. We are beautiful enough to make men swoon but also understand we're out of reach, a flickering moment in a monsoon, a storm of romance that they cannot touch, that they can only witness - our love's trust.

The film shoot was a complete and total disaster - possibly not anything that could hold a candle up to certain cinematic shenanigans, but still pretty terrible. For one thing, the main actor, who had been fighting norovirus for about two days, proceeded to projectile vomit during one of the most romantic scenes in the movie. As he was carted away, the Director of Photography suddenly decided that he wanted to argue with the film's director about the way the cameras were positioned - something that the director was not too thrilled about, and she showed it by the way she ran her fingers through her short red hair.

God and Satan's Tea Time by Belinda Roddie You say your problems are too heavy to carry around. I say we bury them seven hundred feet underground. You think the world will sink in an ocean of our sins. I reply, "It's either you or I who will ensure humanity wins." And your hands are too hot to cradle, and your cup is steaming now, and I'm sweating in my white robes, using their hems to wipe my brow. You say your problems are infectious and very soon, they'll spread to me. I say, "The trouble is, you think we're one and the same, but I don't fall that easily." "Well, that's the last time," you inevitably whine, "that I ever invite you over for tea."

King Henri's Fourth Legion had swarmed its way across the Dead Savannah for the past three months, leaving rotting carcasses and the last screams of the dying behind them. The soldiers ignored the smells, or if they didn't, they breathed the odors in deeply as if admiring the perfume that they had created with their swords and axes. As every other battalion had crumbled against enemy forces, the Fourth Legion pressed onward, the heat baking the once shimmery silver surfaces of their shields.

Six Dollar Fare by Belinda Roddie Two men wait for the bus at Dutch Lane, which, as the old residents say, "ain't what it used to be." One man's face is burned brown like a cowhide belt, while the other's is as white as a porcelain doll - and he looks just as fragile, too. They both rock with the wind, letting each heckling gust dictate where their bodies sway, where their eyes flicker - east or west, forward or behind them. Dutch Lane smells as cooked as a day old steak - there's spice in the air, but smoke gets in your nose and the dust of summer lingers even in winter, coating the insides of your mouth and forcing your words to prematurely age. The two men are going in the same direction, to the same place - the junior college, to mold futures out of clay and see how it bakes in the kiln, its stony mouth swallowing heat and ashes and stories with fragmented endings.

I decided to shift gears in the conversation and talk less about politics and more about my family. Joshua seemed interested in hearing all the funny stories about my sister's adventures; Ulrich, on the other hand, looked bored out of his mind. I ignored his eye rolls and loud sighs, instead choosing to listen to the outbursts and chuckles of my closer friend, his face flushed with from amusement beneath his impressive blond beard.

This Many Miles to Empty by Belinda Roddie and the streets light up under your feet your hot, rubber feet leaving tattoos in the asphalt half-melted in the sunset baked ennui baked lethargy stick the nozzle in your mouth you are drinking an oasis the spout spews gold the taste is too sweet you bend over on the street corner and vomit fire and smoke one more mile to find a liquor store for a bullet of honey whiskey two more miles to see cattle with their hooves split like tree bark the highway is as dry and barren as a corn husk, and the fields are brown, brown, and more brown you have driven this far but your tank rings hollow how many more miles until your throat runs dry? so many words to pronounce the growls are guttural gibberish there's a scream in your mouth as harsh and slippery as coolant and the streets light up