My Cardboard Balcony

Self-Made Manager by Belinda Roddie I'm a self-made manager of original composition, equipped with enough scribbling in my cerebrum to set my coordination off-center, my pace off-kilter. I lose muscular capacity to the art of not losing a word to my own indulgent sleeping habits - dreams are simply opportunities to speak, and to the spirits residing in the cheap motel in the back of your twenty square mile mental estate. They enjoy the complimentary breakfast.

Down in the trench, Sergeant Banks was writing a letter to her grandmother. The insignia had lost its glitter against her collar long ago, and dirt had buried its way so deep under her fingernails that she could barely feel her cuticles. It was cold, and the ink was thin. She tried to draw a heart. It came out as a circle.