My Cardboard Balcony

Escape From The Inevitable by Belinda Roddie Now hot, now cold, I see the sun's fluctuations, its stumbles and bows, its somber smile dripping like waxen gold from its burning lips. This is not the end, but the beginning; in due time, the oceans will be slurped up like scalding soup, salt lingering on our tongues as our skin chars against our mortal grills. We'll flee in ships round as baseballs, and stitched like such, but made with steel instead of leather, and run with circuits instead of cork. We'll make new homes among other dying stars and eat from square tins, all while we still sing, still write, still speak with one another on our enclosed balconies, watching a shooting star dissolve again and again and again, disappearing into the darkness that will push our galaxy farther and further away from us, swirling like milk into the black coffee of the cosmos.

The Jones triplets all liked to do different things: Martin was a jazz trumpeter, Jasmine was an accountant, and Kaitlyn was a brazen activist fighting for both the trans community and the Black Lives Matter movement. All of them sported similar physical features, however, with wild thatches of curly black hair and rich chocolate skin. Martin was married to a woman who was whiter than milk, while Jasmine and Kaitlyn preferred to be single.