My Cardboard Balcony

I'm [Not] Crazy by Belinda Roddie We all have conspiracy theories stuffed in our back pockets. They leak oil and blood and pus and everything cancerous that could kill us. Above our heads, the jets leave chemtrails that are meant to turn our lungs black like the charred remains of pseudo-terroristic threats. I swear, they're out to get us. I don't leave my house. I sit in the corner and face east or west, because north and south are just too convenient, and they show up everywhere in history. Remember the Civil War? Do not trust the poles, their magnetic pulls, their leverage on our brains. That's exactly what the aliens would want from us. I like to think my "conspiracies" aren't conspiracies at all, that they're real, and that there are layers to the foundations of all we find rational and matter-of-fact. Maybe some day, I'll peel off my tin foil hat and go on an adventure, scavenging for meteorite shards, questioning Ma...

I never really knew my father, save for one bleak memory. Warm, but gray. Muggy. We were standing in our backyard together, him drinking a beer, me sipping on some cider I had made with my mother. When I looked up at my father, I noticed he was balding. His hair was gray. He was fat. His teeth were stained when he smiled. And he kept looking out toward the old white fence that sealed us in, as if waiting for someone or something to break through, snatch him up, and steal him away.