My Cardboard Balcony

I am the enigma of a society that is so carefully un-fantastical that it's a wonder that I'm even thriving in this box where I've carved out each and every paranoia as tiny tally notches in a speck of wood and stone labeling all my insecurities. We tend to, as a species, fear the unknown and mysterious - from mad cow disease to spider bites to necrosis and tropical illness - that in an attempt to gain control of the uncontrollable, we forget to manage the things we can control, and we suffer for it, greatly. One out of every three Americans will endure, maybe die of heart disease. One out of every four hundred or so women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. But we try not to think about the things we can manage, because since we understand them, they're so wildly un-mysterious that we try to make the whole world the same way. Even Christians use their Bibles to explain what is meant to be viewed with awe, to be viewed with marvel and magnitude. Yes, we can lea...

Myth and Roses by Belinda Roddie Roll, onward roll, King Midas’s soul, You’ve turned your flesh to solid gold, And it rolls, rolls while she tolls, tolls Your daughter tolls the bells brass cold While the spiders spin a web, as if in a pirouette Across your nose while you roll, roll Into the yellow roses Fall, slowly fall, Pan, autumn’s call Your pipe makes you the best of all And you fall, fall while it calls, calls The heralds here and the leaves in reddish pall While the satyrs glare like lights in the crisp breeze of the night On forest’s walls as you fall, fall Into the yellow roses Stay, forever stay, Lord Hades gray On frosty throne each winter’s day And you stay, stay while she prays, prays Persephone, her flowery hair in waves Priceless souls you both shall never save They do not wait, nor hold their breath with bate No, they go their separate ways And it is he who pays, O’ Hades, When shall we see sun on winter’s day? Your love has passion tender, but your heart is rende...

The balloons, for the third time, lifted into the air like great red bubbles willing to burst into light froth. As the children tossed the water bombs at each other's skulls, I sat with a lemonade and sucked it through a straw, my shades protecting me from the sun's toothless grin. Fortunately, my skin was able to get a rather nice tan most days, enough to get the handsome gym teacher to notice me as he walked across the blacktop.