My Cardboard Balcony

Our Cosmic Summer by Belinda Roddie I hold your planet in my hand, the granite hard against my bare feet. The June room spins seven hundred degrees. I am dizzy, and you kiss me in my lackadaisical vertigo. There is a tremor in the sediment of your personal world, your system that pretends to flawless against my fingers. If I squeeze hard enough, I can hear the wind squeal. I can feel the breath of millions realizing that they are simply a dream. I sway and swoon, but I never let go of you. I never release the galaxy you are attempting to weave. You'll need a few more chunks of rock floating in space to give it some complexity. Everything else can just be stars. Hot, unsympathetic, and practically divas the way they die. Prima donna supernovae take their final bows in your endless irises. You swivel me toward the wall. I loosen my grip. The ocean swells. Millions return to sleep. I am restless. I am lost among countless spirals.

I didn't mean to instigate anything. But one moment, Riley is on her feet, and the next, she's on the floor. I don't exactly understand what happened until I see the red start to leak from her left nostril. She tries to act tough, like it's not there, snorting the blood up into her septum like she's doing a line of rusty cocaine. But the ex-Marine standing over her, rubbing his now bruised knuckles, knows exactly what he's done - and just what kind of Hell he's in for now.