My Cardboard Balcony

I Ate A Tree by Belinda Roddie I ate a tree. I literally ate a tree. I stripped the bark off its body with my sharpened teeth, and I chewed at it like it was gristle. I tried a cluster of bay leaves as a side dish, but it made me crave for pasta with marinara. If I looked hard enough, I could spot tender sprigs of sap crawling from the raw flesh of the trunks where I satisfied my hunger. I sucked away at the sweet knotholes, thinking of maple syrup and shortstacks, glistening with kitchen dreams. The berries scattered in hateful hordes were not edible in the least, instead dangling like forbidden jewels to take from the trove. And before I slept, the crisp cool rain made a puddle in the mud, where I lapped up the earth until it grew molten, and bubbled, and erupted, and the landscape became lava rock and I was left with pangs.

Jack was switching from a large white pill to a tiny orange pill. He had been told that his current medication wouldn't be too kind to his kidneys, and frankly, he preferred potential mood swings to the inability to create normal bodily functions. He sat down for a lunch of cheese and crackers and popped the little tablet into his mouth, washing it down with his can of coke. He could almost feel it fizzing into dust in his stomach.