My Cardboard Balcony

Addict's Waltz by Belinda Roddie I know you wanna misuse me like Adderall, draw out a high from my veins with an imaginary syringe and cling to my lips as if they're laced with something so intoxicating that your head will light up like a carousel at a midnight festival. I know you want to get a buzz when I need to concentrate; you want to dance when I need to stop moving for a second just to inhale something other than your toxins. But maybe put down the pill bottle and kiss me for my real flavor, and sleep beside me so we can both dream about car rides without artificial additives, songs without needles, rhythms without Ritalin, promises without prescriptions, change without bargaining. Drop the lighter, tuck the scorched spoon into the dishwasher, and just let our shoddy past lives burn to the godforsaken ground.

Put two loafs of bread right in the oven, and boom - black as soot when the timer beeped. I didn't know what was wrong - at least, not until I confronted my mad scientist-esque wife, who removed her goggles as I walked into her lab. "I was experimenting with the measures of convection on the oven to see how hot it could get without blowing up the house," she said. "Why? Did I forget to revert it to its original settings?"