My Cardboard Balcony

I Find by Belinda Roddie I find a stone, and it feels cold in my palm, smoothed out by the ocean tipped with foam. I find a bone picked clean by birds that fly from crest to crest, from cliff to cliff. They roam so freely, so unhindered, and I feel just a little bit envious of them. I find letters from my mother, still sealed. I never opened them. I find a gem that's loosened from its ring. I find a cracked and empty saltshaker along the road, and it proves useless in my kitchen back home. I find quatrains and a silly ode my father wrote, and somehow, all I hold are little nothings that, like me, grow old.

"I don't sing the national anthem." "Why not?" "Because it's terrible, that's why!" Sylvester slapped down his half-empty can of beer as he finished his sentence. "And not because of the country, mind you. It's just a terrible song." "Why do you say that?" "The melody, the lyrics, the strange question at the end...I mean, if it were me, the national anthem would have a lot more death metal screaming and definitely a couple of explosions after the second verse. Because Amurrica!"