My Cardboard Balcony

When I Was Too Young by Belinda Roddie When I was too young to be thinking about death, I'd go rolling down the hill by my father's sweet cottage. He'd cook up a stew that was easy on my belly, still wracked with the nerves of the previous day, from a schoolmaster's cane and a classmate's derision. Ah, but she was so pretty and batting her lashes, and despite her sharp tongue, I felt like sucking the venom from her mouth with my lips. I'd kiss her to forget about the end of the world, and I'd roll down the hill with her taste on my tongue. But no, I was left with the welts from the rod, and so I ingested the stew in just a few bites. My father knew how I was tortured in school, so he fed me dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt. The flavor that lingered wasn't what I expected, and it didn't replace my strange youthful urges. But I was young and naive, and I thought about sunsets and moonsets and fireflies and kisses on

Cloudy, gloomy, dark, and gray. That's what today was. And yet, I had not an ounce of inspiration's nectar in my veins. I had no interest in writing, or composing music, or making art. I simply sat at my desk, staring at a white screen. Stark, staring, madness-inducing white. Like the tunnel to a kind of Heaven that I couldn't access. Overcast and dim days were usually times for me to become creative. Not this time. Not today.