My Cardboard Balcony

Silicon by Belinda Roddie You don't feel right against my palms. You say this was done to make you beautiful. Your tapestry is patchwork now. One part of you looks different from the other. I was mad for you. Mad for your bends and angles. Your soft and your hard. You are reconstructing the idea of what you think I am supposed to love. A convoluted circus of circuits, wired and rewired to your clueless brain - the only thing that might still be organic about you. It would be different if you were doing this for you, and you alone. You mark where the needle goes, and I will respect the direction the thread moves - where it tightens, where it loosens. But when you say that you are doing it for me, you are missing the literal, and the figurative, point. Don't make me kiss you. Your lips are so cold, and your chest so hot, metal-hot, like a stove, like you'll burn me if I touch you. I will not go to bed with blisters tonight. If you come

"I didn't think you had an interest in winemaking," I said to Vincent as we sat together near the vineyard. "I don't," Vincent scoffed. "My dad thinks I should. He's way into wine and fermentation these days. He wants to go back to school to learn how to do it." "So why's he dragging you into this?" "You know the whole 'like father, like son' mentality?" "Good lord," I mumbled, taking another sip of mediocre Cabernet.