My Cardboard Balcony

Well, this is it. Next week, I start work at my new job. I'll be meeting new people, working in an entirely different district with an entirely different group of kids, raised by an entirely different-minded set of parents. I will be in the most affluent city in the county, which dynamics are excruciatingly contrasted with that of the school I recently worked with. The ethnicity is different. culture is different. The social class is different. And by all those standards, the attitude is completely different. Yes, I did just type the word "different" seven times in the same paragraph. Go figure. Am I nervous? Of course I am. Taking on a new job is nothing new to me - Hell, not counting this new job, I've worked at two different schools in the past two years. Part of being an educator is the struggle with a consistent job, and that's what I'm hoping this will be - a consistent job that I can keep at for a little bit longer than, say, one year. But obvious...

Death Poem by Belinda Roddie Graceful guillotine, caress this red and broken flesh as the blood turns brown I was scheduled to die at sunrise. Ordained by a pseudo-justice, sporting the exaggerated garb and the creased scowl. Carried out by the drones in uniform. Their faces all looked the same. Their eyes all had no luster. I stood in my cell with the other prisoners of war scattered about my feet. One was curled in the fetal position in the corner, muttering the same broken, incoherent phrase to himself over and over. Another kept asking people for a cigarette. Most were asleep. Others stared wild-eyed into the rays of sun that seeped through the fissures like the stones were bleeding light. They began leading them out one by one. They bound them in the same fashion. Metal cuffs pressing knuckles into the spine. Chains coiled like slumbering serpents around their ankles. The prisoners hung their heads as they dragged into the morning dew. They w...

By the time I got to the silo, I noticed that all the feed for the cows was completely gone. This was strange to me because I had taken care of the grain and corn this morning, taking excellent care to feed the cattle perfect amounts so we had enough the next day without having to refill. "Uncle Marty," I asked when I walked back to the barn, "where's all the feed?" "Your aunt took it," he grumbled. "What?!" "Said it should be part of the divorce deal," he added with an ugly sneer.