My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie Oh my God, why is everything so horrible? Just like that, bananas as we know them will cease to exist. Bees will disappear, too, and only the wealthy will be able to afford chocolate if we can still plant it. Soon, the trees will be cut down because we need space for cattle, and if we're lucky, all of California will turn to ash after the next colossal fire. Thanks, humanity - you're really doing us a solid! Still, I cling to the impermanent moments of it all. The songs I find on Youtube that I listen to over and over again. The cold air before everything on the planet gets too warm. Wearing suits and drinking blackberry margaritas, kissing my wife because I have the freedom to do so publicly now. Seeing my sister for the first time in months, having the whole family reunited for Christmas. The taste of peppermint chocolates and caramels. The thrill of my fingers across a keyboard. Why does everything have to suck, and yet every little fun detail in my p

My soul is forged from steel - my mind is titanium circuits. I am not a being of silicon, however, but of carbon. The metaphors I spew like nonsense streamers still apply to my fortitude, my determination, my endurance. Perhaps linking myself to the most powerful of the physical - the toughest of materials, the most lasting of impermanent minerals - allows me to feel invincible. If only temporarily. That's worth something.