My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie I feel like a monster. I look like one, too. And I think I smell like one, too. Mothballs and moldy socks. Rotten meat and vegetables. It's like I've climbed out of a garbage can and crawled under a bed. My husband says he'll leave me if I don't shower. My son wants me to get a haircut. I don't want to feel warm water on my skin. Or shampoo on my scalp. It's like pins and needles being stabbed into my pores. I don't know why I'm like this. I hate that I'm like this. I'm yelling before. Well, more roaring. It's becoming incoherent. My daughter cries constantly. She says she doesn't recognize me. I don't recognize myself, either. I used to be blonde. I used to be pretty. I used to wear blue eyeshadow and red lipstick. I used to put on deodorant and wear nice pantsuits to work. Then the company laid me off. And then my diet turned to shit. And then the moods started again. The goddamn moods. They always ruin

The birthday party wasn't so much a get-together as it was...well, a circus. Not that there were any cool elements of said circus there, like lions and trapeze artists and giant rings of fire. But there were certainly a whole lot of clowns. Not clowns in make-up with wigs and big shoes (well, save for Billy Delainey regarding his big boots), but in demeanor entirely. And I wasn't laughing. "You can't eat the cake yet!" I shouted at sixty-five-year-old Ryan O'Malley, who had decided to try to take a bite directly from the spongey base before I had even lit the candles.