My Cardboard Balcony

Bruxism by Belinda Roddie There was a young man anxious as can be who ground his teeth before he had his tea and he clenched all day and he gnashed all night 'til his molars were shrapnel of yellow and white

I don't drink margaritas anymore, or eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, because my metabolism has all the agility of a snail caught in a sticky quagmire on a warm and rainy June evening. I feast on salt and arugula and watch everyone else get thinner on beef and beer, and I wonder to myself just when my body decided to rebel against me. When it decided that occasional indulgence was toxic, and it needed to survive thirteen simultaneous Russian winters.