My Cardboard Balcony

Radial Tunnel Syndrome by Belinda Roddie To tie your nerves up in knots - to pinch them, like a garden hose, so that the circulation is reduced to a constricted trickle during an autumn drought. The fingers blessed by numbness caused by angels' hidden needles, just in time for the rising temperatures so that you don't feel the heat stroke caressing the sweaty crook of your arm.

How long has the queen been imprisoned? Seven years? Seventeen? Is there gray in her hair and wrinkles beneath her eyes, or is she still young and spry in a darkened cell? Has she been muted, or does she still sing? Her melodies and anthems are missed throughout the land. The king's been dead for too long now - how much longer until we get our true ruler back? I've stopped counting the days; I simply press my body up against the window nearest to the tower, hoping to hear a crescendo of music.