My Cardboard Balcony

Easy on the Eyes by Belinda Roddie She wears a skirt like extra skin, an edge to add to an edge, to an edgy silhouette dreaming shadows up behind a transparent curtain - it's meant to conceal, but it winds up revealing every calming inch. I like her. I like her from a distance, when my coffee's cold and my biscuit's broken and my credit card is maxed. I think of kissing her and know that if I tried, she'd slap me, hard, and with her lipstick handprint dripping anger from my cheek, I'll know that I've deserved the strike. Still, there's something to her that keeps me cool. The smile or the curve of her ankle against her sneaker. The way she adores herself, and I think she should be respected for it. But from a distance, I am an annoying ogler, and even though she's easy on the eyes, I am ashamed of devolving her to nothing but the superficial glow of my carnivorous urges.

"Five out of seven of us are disfigured," said the person in the nearest corner, "but you won't be able to tell which ones. We all wear masks, you see. Some masks, they cover a small area - an eye, or a nose, or a jaw. Others, it's the stereotypical ninja look - everyone below the eyes, shrouded. The rest of us, it's an entirely new face. And you'll never know if the real face beneath the plaster is still societally passable."