My Cardboard Balcony

No Hetero by Belinda Roddie Nicholas likes boys and that's no lie Emery likes girls and getting high Both ditch school to go play pool and Emery laughs as she breaks all the rules Two matches in and Nicholas wins while they both talk sports, drugs, sex, and sin He drinks scotch and she swigs beer Both get a kick out of being super queer They head outside to smoke a pipe or two Em wears green and Nick wears blue Inside, they're red as red can be while they both get faded on Fifth and C Nick goes home to a mean, drunk dad Em deals with Mom who's always mad Nicholas ditches his old man as he bitches heading up to his room before he needs to get stitches Emery's room is as cold as a tomb but magazines filled with babes gets rid of all the gloom Every night, it's always the same Nick and Em get stoned and play another pool game He's thinking 'bout boys and playing with their floppy toys She's got ladies ...

When I played baseball, my father told me over and over that there were two important factors to maintaining my speed, endurance, and skill: Practice and hydration. Now, I'm not sure why he was so hung up on me drinking so much water that I felt like my stomach would burst, but the practicing did help. Still, by the time I turned seventeen, I was sneaking in and out of the drugstore with friends, and soon I was hydrating with cheap, awful whiskey instead of good old-fashioned H2O.