My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie The very air you breathe is a lie. It poisons you, bit by bit, until you feel yourself reeling, off-kilter, into the nearest coffee table with your lopsided drink spilling across your perfectly white shirt. Your perfectly pure, chaste white shirt. Not to say that there is a better alternative. It is like drinking a slower poison. You would rather go with the carcinogen than the cyanide. And in the end, it becomes addicting. You don't know when to quit the toxic binge. You know that if you stop, you will die. But you will die anyway, if you keep going. You take a drag of the cigarette. Only the cigarette is not comprised of vicious chemicals. It is oxygen and carbon dioxide. It is car exhaust and tree exhalations. It is kisses, alcohol, and food. It is radiation. It is sunlight. It is the moon and the stars, All shining upon you and soaking your skin with all the stigmas of the universe. And it is all so damn beautiful! But the most stunning eleme

Small, silver spikes dotted the collar of Celeste's jacket, as she pulled at the fraying threads of her fingerless black gloves. She was nervous - I could tell. From the way she fiddled with loose strings on her clothes to the way she smoothed back her very short hair, she was probably wondering why she was even tolerating being in the same room as I was without cracking. I knew she wanted me, just as badly as I wanted her.