My Cardboard Balcony

Two by Belinda Roddie two blue boys played in a room that was painted thirty different shades of nostalgic moments sitting at the bar, asking a redhead, "Where are you from?" "I'm from a planet fraught with warfare with lions chewing tanks and swallowing chunks of" your hand against my lower back, where the tailbone meets with the staircase hidden in blue

The sultan sat. The bells rang. And all the stage was blazing with the monks' bodies. Across the globe, a rabbi taught the story of Moses to a group of college students. They all wore greens and blues. One wore purple because another young gay boy had thrown himself off a bridge. And in every corner of the world, it rained a little puddle and the oceans grew a little saltier.

Formula by Belinda Roddie a cabaret singer exposed her kneecaps to an older man who had killed a gypsy when he was younger the military clown and the scholarly fool with a broken noose around his wrist.

You made an inedible soup that looked pretty on papery canvasses. You stroked it with hairy fingers and bristles just like your mustache. A mix of color to splash on my face and hands. You liked to make my skin blue around my hazel eyes. I looked like an elven creature from. You found it very beautiful.

Maiden by Belinda Roddie you were drinking butterscotch soup today golden sweetness dripping from your raw pink chin disappearing into puddles in the dry meadow grass sharper than any nectar I suckled from your lactating nipple heaving saliva and sugar tears with each salty breath I dreamt I was a horned creature standing on a bridge all alone and holding out a bowl of blood asking every girl who passed to fuck me so I could finally sleep during the night you ladled spoonfuls of intoxication into my mouth and tasted like Wonderland.

A princess? A princess?! Really? Out of all the things to find in a tower, it had to be a princess? Not that it's surprising in any way, shape, or form, but c'mon...can we have a little originality here? I mean, it was bad enough that I had to fight a dragon...a red dragon, mind you. It's always red. Why not a purple dragon? Would that be too fabulous? Hmmm? Oh, now she's looking at me with those doe brown eyes. Better start acting all heroic.

The water swirls around the fragments of a ball gown in a square drain. Or a prom dress. Or some strand of sequins from a department store. The man who found it is in a tuxedo. Or maybe royal raiment. Maybe he's a prince. Or maybe he's a lost soul. Beside the scraps of fabric is broken glass. It used to fit a foot. But the ankle's now broken and the pirouette's awkward and clumsy and disjointed. The slipper's no good now.