My Cardboard Balcony

Championship by Belinda Roddie Did we win? I think the gold has melted into the creases of our fortune teller life lines - how this taints our futures, no one can really safely say. You've drunk silver before, danced until the sun bronzed your skin, and I, poor soul, was like the Tin Man, bereft of a heart, until you kissed me and reminded me of what beat beneath my ivory cradle. Did we win, after all, the precious metal of our romance? Was our victory sweet enough to sate the sour stain on flopping tongues? Was our magic trick impressive enough to trick almost everyone? Did we manage to fool the masses? Did we win?

Somehow, I thought I could hear a songbird, for the first time in over fifteen years, tweeting a familiar tune outside my window. It was a tune I had grown familiar with as a child, a tune practically engraved in the shape of a heart on every tree, rippling in every park pond, and tattooed on every child's sweating forehead as they frolicked around the playground. It sounded like what my mother would hum to me each night before bed, before she disappeared for good.