My Cardboard Balcony

My pirate crew was ready. Their cardboard cutlasses caught the bare sunlight peeking out from the swarm of fog just right. Their tattered old T-shirts and jeans were ripped perfectly for the day. Costume store hats bedecked their brows. Cloth eyepatches. Plastic hooks. I stood upon the bow of my grandfather's old tugboat, swinging my sword around with my heavy red coat billowing in the wind.

by Belinda Roddie ‎Honestly, it was the worst thing that could have happened to me, but the best thing that could have happened to him. Standing in front of the iron-wrought bars together, we watched the links of chainmail curtain rise up to expose the raw and tender skies before us, inviting us to climb up stone stairs to the screening area. It was certainly much more of a security procedure than a grand royal judicial process. There were no scales. No records. Nothing. Just the swipe of a wand against our white shirts and pants, no pockets. We didn't have anything on us but the injuries which edges were still drying and exposing tiny red webs of fibers from where we were gashed. He said nothing as we were scanned, patted down, and led gently through the crowded hallway that moved barely an inch a minute. If it even was a minute. It wasn't until the end of the corridor, while the light was so blinding I had to avert my eyes, that he looked at me with a strange express...

"Arthur, I need your help!" "What? What is it?" "I need some auxiliary support on this!" "Auxiliary support on what?" "You gotta come over here!" "What situation possibly warrants the term 'auxiliary support?'" "...Do you know where I can find a good biographical book on Ludwig von Beethoven?" "Ah. See, the auxiliary support there is called a library. You should check it out."

Apart from my teaching jobs and my freelance writing, I am also an independent musician. You probably haven't noticed, but in the contact section, I did add a new link. It's to my fairly recent Myspace page, where I have audaciously uploaded some of my demo songs. I've sent the tracks to a very good friend of mine - who also happened to be a bandmate of mine in a band known as the Castle Town Convicts - so he can add some more parts to them and polish them up a bit. The tracks, either way, are rough, first draft, and daring. That aside, I'm happy I put them up. The thing that strikes me the most is that unlike other forms of writing, musical composition for me has always been more sporadic. I tend to have much longer lapses with my songwriting than my writing not only because I've forced myself to make my creative writing more routine, but also because I find it more difficult to write songs than poems, stories, and scripts. And why not? Music is an entirely di...

The Effects of Love by Belinda Roddie Getting to know you and love you was one of the harder things in life Especially because of your so very charming and noble wife Who kept everything so perfectly clean, like the feminine being Which from the surface of society I’ve been trying to glean And now here we are, once more, on the patio by the front door And I wait for you to loosen my collar and kiss and heal the sores Upon my throat, all festering, as I muster up the strength To clasp your fingers in mine and breathe you in at length Getting to know you and love you was one of the hardest things in life But don’t worry, you won’t have to think about your jealous wife I took care of her in the kitchen with a fork and knife The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since June 11th, 2007.

"There's a towel on the doorknob," said Danny. "Is that code for something?" "Not sure." I chewed at my jerky a bit longer, but the salty residue left me a little unimpressed. Danny was still looking at me, like he was expecting me to finally divulge the truth like it was a riddle that neither of us had figured out yet. I matched his gaze exactly. "Seriously, it's probably Joe not putting his towel away. We're fine."

The Sadness Of A Sticker by Belinda Roddie The sadness of a sticker stripped across your forehead involves several things, like the itching, sticky feeling on your skin, or the neon reminder of something you can't stop people from calling you. You don't want that label, plastered in the crease above your eyes that beg for one chance to pull off the thing, but even when you do, the residue lingers on your eyebrows and everyone remembers it was there. It's tragic that those forced to become an abused cartoon have to impose the glue on others' faces because they believe that it's right, but alas - those thoughts deceive.