My Cardboard Balcony

Addict by Belinda Roddie Reluctant intoxication leads to damp sheets, crazed dreams, the bridge to nowhere rotting as soon as you set your foot into the ether, the vapors rising around you, changing the color of your hair. The bottle grows hot in your hand, the music hostile, aggressive, each note a fist sinking into your soft abdomen, bending you over like a plastic straw, sadly drooping from its half-melted glass. But she hoists you up as you begin to fall, kisses you ten times, four on each cheek, two on your lips. The math is difficult in your addled brain, the air rough against your teeth. She sets about undressing you, cleansing you, carrying you to bed, as the fumes of the night's temptations wear away, and you hope that tomorrow, you won't be so drawn to the drink.

The captain's epic tales at sea were of nearly mythic proportions, almost to the point in which I expected her to start saying she confronted two Kraken instead of just one. We were all sitting at the table together, trying desperately to keep our plates steady, the ocean beneath us causing the ship to rock erratically and threaten to spill our hot food into our laps. "Wait until you hear her story about fighting giant squids," her first mate whispered to me, giggling as she drank greedily from her stolen rhinestone-rimmed goblet.