My Cardboard Balcony

Second Chance by Belinda Roddie second chance to do it all to drink the shots you poured out for the dead to burn your hands on hot asphalt to dance to music you never thought you liked to kiss the girl you truly loved only to have her walk away every time to tell your father at long last why he'll never be the man you always looked up to to see sunrises without faces to miss sunsets and close book chapters to sing the songs you've memorized before and die the same death you wanted to avoid to wonder why you tried again when the first time in the end was just enough

Wake me up in a soundproof room, where all the screams of the damned are entombed. No one hears the echoes of funeral dirges, or of curses and slights, or of sexual urges. There are bones in the wall and hearts beating in the corners. I can feel the heat radiating off the houseowner. He collects us together - it's inevitable. He'll break all of your spirit and drink from your skull.