My Cardboard Balcony

Geppetto's Sick Imagination by Belinda Roddie These strings have pulled my limbs together too tightly for long enough. I'll dance for you only tonight, and in the morning, I'll lie limp like the splintered puppet you want me to be. Then, once you cut my fibers thin, I'll find a new love in dance again, and I'll spin until I'm dizzy enough to see stars for the first time since Father built me out of scraps of Mother Nature's womb. Birth me again in the light of seven moons, and maybe soon, I'll feel like a real boy for the first time, despite your plaintive sighs for something to manipulate to make your old bones feel more goddamn alive.

It is so, so very tempting right now to chug an entire bottle of Fireball and do cartwheels until I tumble off a bridge into the deepest part of the bay. There, I will become a drunken mermaid - the most intoxicated of them all - and eat starfish and drink brine for the rest of my days. Because let's get serious here: The world above the water is a bit too warm, and a bit too noisy, and just full of really, really nasty people.