My Cardboard Balcony

What a week. That's really the only way I can see it: What a week. In more ways than one. Positive and negative connotations. Both happy moments and very emotional moments. Mostly episodes of massive anxiety, second guessing, and yes, lots and lots of tears. I had to make some very big decisions this week. After a weekend of looking at teaching credential programs with my very helpful aunt, I chose to push off doing a credential until 2014 after several nights of sobbing and wringing my hands about it. Yes, the decision was hard. Yes, I am genuinely concerned about what my aunt will think. Obviously, the work we did together was not in vain - I'm taking the tests I need to at least work in substitute teaching, and I have all the materials and knowledge necessary to apply for credentials much further in advance. The bottom line is, I shot myself in the foot by not applying sooner and also by not saving enough money to go to school and still be able to pay off...

Autumn Leaves by Belinda Roddie Spinning wheels and painted faces, the festival leaves traces Of ash and sand on every spot that it stands It says, “Offer me kindness in these festivities And I will make you the color of autumn leaves.”   Melting ice on powdered lips, puckered in a hideous kiss Upon a dragon’s snout as he offers yet another stout To satisfy the ones who ooze mud from their pores While molten silver in their fingers is sucked into their arteries Their faces are covered in sores as they age like autumn leaves   Calming flame that burns my cheeks and turns my eyes from a forest green To a smoky gray, as if I were blind and could not see past my own mind But I see colors, red and blue, on the noses of silly youth But the blue is from silly tears of off-kilter joy As they tear the limbs off of their wooden toys The soldiers in bloody piles, but smiles still aim to please   The festival takes place in ...

Go on ahead, she had said to me. I'll catch up, she persisted to me. And yet here I was, alone in the mountains, sitting in a tent and waiting for her to appear from the blizzard. Maybe she had fallen off a cliff. Or been eaten by a bear. Or maybe, in my addled yet spontaneously creative mind, she had fallen off a cliff while being eaten by a bear. That would make a good story. Or at least a very surreal Youtube viral video. I lit the fire and sat by the frost.