My Cardboard Balcony

Awkward Ocean by Belinda Roddie We dwell by an awkward ocean. We breathe deep and let the heat burn our nostrils. We sip salt around the rims of coral reefs and let the sun sear our retinas until there's nothing but carbon dioxide radiating in our lungs. We carry burdens, all of us - but the sea cannot wash away each scrap fallen from the dinner table. The fish that eat the crumbs have already been gutted. The waves splash bubble bath sprinkles as the winter becomes second summer. The scalped sunset with a pink, exposed crown. I cannot say I can spare it - my gift to you is distraction so you can ignore the operation I botched on Mother Nature's cancerous bosom. The tumors metastasize, and we learn to build houses on her lumps instead of planting the cure within her swollen mammary glands. My gift to you is senselessness, so when your double motor revs behind glowing screens, you'll strip naked and feel like melting in the sterile glow of the con...

We couldn't say that word in the classroom because it was taboo. Nor at the bus stop. Nor at the city hall. Not even at home, where comfort should have been sought for the sake of privacy. But privacy was a draconian term by now, and the truth was, the forbidden element of the language had once been a common occurrence fifty or so years back. So when Alan Hoff said the taboo word and later disappeared, we all knew why.