My Cardboard Balcony

Food Poisoning by Belinda Roddie You have the cordiality to look concerned as I hover over this basin of my own creation, tortured by bad sushi and dark chocolate and glasses of Amaretto. You don't hold my hair back, but you do place your hand against the flattest part of my back - just below the arch, just below the curve, just below the natural ridge of distorted flesh disturbed by a fall on the playground. The bone that cracked never quite healed right. I'm sure you'd like to be anywhere but here, this constricted porcelain space with recycled porcelain air. No amount of perfume can fix the stench of sweat and half-digested food. I'm sure you think I'm drunk, but in truth, I simply can't absorb the hedonistic pleasures I once adjusted to as easily as fitting a plug into a socket; nothing is grounded anymore. It's all shaky limbs and beaded perspiration like a chain around my neck and a half dozen tiny knives perforating the mucu...

We were all reading a book about a deserted island - you know the one. The one with savage boys and dead bodies and a severed pig's head. The one with the pink conch and the glistening lagoon and the walls of ocean. The one that crams students' heads with screams of allegory and then expects them to retain it as part of their daily routine. The one that reminds us of the beast. Of where it is. Of what it is. Of who it is. And it has no snout. And it has no teeth. But it can still bite.