My Cardboard Balcony

Loquacious by Belinda Roddie Can't you see that I'm half past mad? Yanking sour notes from behind my plaque-caked molars, stirring stews to boil stories until they ooze out of my nasal cavity? As the bubbles pop from my nostrils and ears, guests with full plates do not finish meals, but glasses are always topped off. I am no classy raconteur: I am the maniacal concoction of a one-night stand, pouring from a hot champagne bottle with the sweat rolling down the cheeks of walls, stalling lovers ready to go home and sleep beside one another in the same bed, not to talk, but just to dream in wordless euphoria, and I bark and yowl and whinny until I am more animal than friend.

We set sail for another new land. Not possible? We'd prove everyone wrong. There had to be an eighth sea. A marine terrain with rising jaws of earth to swallow us. Somewhere untouched. Unscathed. Scar-less. Bruise-less. Wordless. That perhaps was the most important to me. We took off in my motorboat. I did not need food to eat or water to drink. He did. He was mortal. He needed nourishment.