My Cardboard Balcony

This Dream Has Legs by Belinda Roddie This dream has legs, and it knows how to run and jump over the hills, all of them bronzed with warm light from an unfamiliar sun that does not sleep and stifles all its yawns behind a glowing hand. This dream has eyes that see more colors than we'd ever paint on melting canvasses, dissolving skies and screaming sunsets, showing no restraint as faces tilt toward unexpected hues and rainbows made of stained glass. This dream has a mouth, and yet, I know that it will choose not to speak, for its words no longer pass for substance. Still, the images are there, 'til I wake up to God's still vacant stare.

I no longer hope. I am incapable of hope. I see the decline and fall of a country that tried so hard to be an empire without the emperor part. And now that the emperor struts around in orange wearing a toupee crown, I guess we can safely say that this experiment is over. Forget norms. Forget institutions. At least I happen to be living in an area where maybe we can raise the flag for independence if the rest of the nation falls apart like stale chocolate left too long on a grocery store shelf.