My Cardboard Balcony

Abstract Art by Belinda Roddie You stand before the locked gate, your tapestry flowing from your shoulders, swathed in pastels and pretentious shades. You have a clock for a face, yet you cannot tell time to save your life. Many months ago, your hands spun out of control, and you were lost in ticks and tocks and Roman numerals lined up in a row. The circumference of your character is not so well-rounded after all, and so, you are denied access to the surrealist emporium, the estate closed off to you, Dalí standing at the door and giving you the finger. But that doesn't matter, since after all, you were created to represent Whitman, and his corporeal desires, like electricity, course through both his veins and yours, causing the fabric enclosing your silhouette to glitter with fire. You have a soul, even though it is burning slowly now, and you open your mouth to sing, but all you do is chime the hour. The wrong hour.

I came from a large family living in a rural area, without much to offer besides farms, a couple of bars, and endless gray, cracked miles of road. By the time I turned eighteen, I had bought a ticket to San Francisco, and I was moving in with my girlfriend. I was young and reckless, as any other eighteen-year-old would be, and excited to be somewhere urban, but as soon as I stepped off the plane with my suitcase squeaking behind me, I could feel my rustic heart creaking with anxiety.