My Cardboard Balcony

A Vacancy by Belinda Roddie Love trickles into the room as softly as sparse sunlight on a string. It descends from warmed glass and rests in between sheets and blankets. And like an uninvited guest, it settles into all your personal spaces: sleeping atop the creases in your throw pillows, reclining on your favorite chair, sitting in the corner that you designated for your worst moments. Sandwiched between guilt and doubt, love expects to make itself at home, even when you didn't ask for its presence. You make mountains on the comforter that rises against our bodies. I hold each fold of you against me, as if accepting the waves that crash against my shore. Your body is honest with me; it is under no obligation to connect with anyone, and yet, here it lies, each curve symmetrical with my personal work of art. We are carved in the same graven image. When it gets dark, love makes no attempt to leave. It nestles into the niches and recesses near the wa

Somehow, you remain as crafty, as cunning, and as conniving as possible. Your solutions to problems don't so much make amends as they burn bridges. And yet, here I am, handing you another Molotov cocktail. You hurl it toward the heavens and laugh as if you've caused God's domain to burst into flames. As if your deity Herself could ever self-destruct.