My Cardboard Balcony

Watch My Life by Belinda Roddie Watch my life turn into threads on the seams of a worn down jacket of black and white. We're high on honeysticks and broken dreams as we blend bodies into inky night. Our hearts are literally in our hands as we traverse the boundaries between life and death, love and hate. Our false commands to a befuddled god that didn't mean to exist in the first place just makes fools out of us all. Our words are simply strings that dangle from the stars; the swimming pools we dip our toes into are idle things. We find reflections that simply don't match the life from which I plan to self-detach.

The cat that liked to sneak into our house wasn't a stray. She was well-fed and well-groomed, and she lived with another tabby in a condo across the street from us. Still, she found our living room to be to her liking - sniffing around the couch, nuzzling her head against the coffee table. It was only when she tried to run upstairs did my wife acquiesce and carry the feisty feline back outside.

Man Overboard by Belinda Roddie Soon enough they'll dredge my body out of the salty harbor scrubbing my bone clean of the stinging debris stripping the fibers of the sea from my teeth My eyes scream for second sight If they're not careful I'll sink again into the muddy waves and the currents will carry my shadow from the canal to the docks, and I will paint my silhouette across every white sail of ships squatting in their communal circle discussing the schedule for next week over bread crumbs and seagulls' shrieks The noise will be pronounced enough to revive me from my listless stupor I promise that if you give me a trident I will become a brand new underwater god rather than the sad husk of seaweed-stained humanity strewn across the driftwood-clogged shore, where children dig their claws into the sand to find food, and dogs sniff at my thinning hair with no desire to howl for help

The Nail On My Little Toe by Belinda Roddie The keratin separated from its skin hinges, like a castle drawbridge torn from the stones of such a frail fortress. This is where my balance is meant to lie, yet here I am, using tissue to clean up the blood, dabbing at this tiny hero who once kept my ancestor's grip firm on a branch in the middle of the canopy. Such a beauty of leaves, a ceiling with no need for a chandelier, just the gold sprinkling across green as you try to hold yourself together, piece by piece, digit by digit.

The woman in the red coat sits down at the corner of the outside bar, where the sun hits her shoulders at such an angle that the velvet ripples like Moses' Red Sea. She crosses one leg over the other, showing off the silver buckles on her Italian shoes, and orders a drink strong enough to knock out a giant with an alcohol problem.

To Getting It Done by Belinda Roddie It still feels incomplete even though you hold it in your hand even though you kiss its hardbound skin even though you stroke each leathery scar with the least callused part of your thumb It's there It's real It's complete It means something to you A first, in the grand scheme of other firsts the firsts you've finished with a pen or a final tap against a crumb-filled keyboard like your first play like your first novel like your first screenplay like your first series They're all filled with the same drama and the same intrigue and the same frustrations and the same hopes and the same dreams and always the same adventure leading you to the end of a marathon only to draw out another starting line for you in white chalk The race is on again and you are absolutely willing to run it After all your stamina and your endurance are much better now