My Cardboard Balcony

Galvanized Rust by Belinda Roddie My fingers got caught in the chain link fence by your father's hellhole of a house. I tore them away when I heard the sirens, and the blood around my cuticles matched the glow of the howling lights. I had come to check on you only to see you as a fresh cadaver instead. I didn't feel any pain in my hand; I was too distracted for that. You told me five years ago, over coffee, that your dad would never touch you again, that all that time in a cold cell with a tiny window that had a bad view of the bay was enough to sober his abusive ass up. No more drinking, you said confidently. No more fighting. No more threats. No more contusions found on your mother's back like when you counted her moles as a child. They had made such a pretty map to nowhere. I heard my knuckles squeal against the woven steel as I attempted to free my swollen joints from the tangle of metal molars. I thought for a moment that you had called my nam

Baby Julian took his first tiny steps across the linoleum of the kitchen, where his father was making dinner and his mother was grabbing another beer. His father, Stefan, immediately dropped the ladle he was using to scoop out chicken noodle soup and immediately ran upstairs to get the video camera. His mother, Victoria, who was quite drunk, laughed and hiccuped saying, "Who cares? I know how to walk, too."