My Cardboard Balcony

They Said the World Would End by Belinda Roddie They said the world would end tomorrow, but they guessed that it would happen back in May, and before that, they said two years ago was certainly the climax of all days. In nineteen ninety-four the claim was thrown into a book, and still it wasn't right. The man had grown more senile, but assured to everyone that he had seen the light. And all the while, he'd taken money from each sorry schmuck who still believed in him. They still pay their devotions to the cause until their pockets only hold their lint. No matter what, tomorrow I will say: Get out the booze for pseudo-rapture day!

I could relate in more ways than one. Like he always chewed gum with his mouth closed. And he kept his hair up in one or two tufts, never more. He liked to ride his bicycle at night without a light. He wore one contact lens. He preferred cats over dogs. He died each night in bed and had to be revived by the gift of electricity. I could definitely relate.

Untitled by Belinda Roddie   I went to a hacker convention. Pre-pubescent computer wizards hovered over keyboards like stony gargoyles hunched over a scattered cemetery of circuits and wires and tombstone monitors. I half-expected their fingers to meld with metal, to melt like hot metal on plastic letters that spelled out defiance in a bestial reaction.

When the boy built a sand castle on the beach, he also wanted to make a sand king and a sand queen. But the sand queen would be traitorous and unfaithful, attempting to overtake the sand king with a sand army. But the sand king would have the god Poseidon on his sand, who'd send out a flurry of sea monsters in the form of waves to wash away the army. But ultimately, the castle itself would be sacrificed. The boy's parents always thought he had a beautiful imagination.

Ain't She A Beauty by Belinda Roddie   Ain't she a beauty when she fans her fingers and a thousand spiders weave her a dress that sparkles with ivory sequins and drapes her in sin?

A mutual break-up requires a complete emptying of the brain, the retrieval of memories before they are tossed into a metal wastebasket and thrown in a dumpster, where it drifts toward the ocean and is soaked with salt. It requires one person smiling while weeping inwardly, no matter how right it was to end it, because a relationship, any relationship, leaves a rather large thumbprint.

Mo Chuisle by Belinda Roddie   Mo chuisle. My pulse. My love. My darling. My current on a windy day. The Liffey swollen with static. The frost on a pint glass. Frost speckled spit lips kiss kiss boom pulse heart Mo chuisle.