My Cardboard Balcony

June Struck Me Like A Drum by Belinda Roddie June struck me like a drum, hard, and I bowled over, feet kicking upward, scrambling to regain balance. She tried to hit me yet again, but I moved far too quickly. You stood by the kitchen, frozen, jaw half-dropped, as the aggression, warped against her flesh, propelled June forward in her great assault against me, for the sake of "recompense." I didn't want to strike her back. I could not do it. She was far too gone to see what violence she was now succumbing to, how much she was severely hurting me. I was the percussion until I ran from her, the pain and time turning to sand.

There were three employees being considered for the monthly title, which to me proved to be entirely insignificant save for the 10% discount they would receive on anything they bought for themselves in the store. But none of the workers at this place ever wanted to shop here. We had grown tired of the same products, plastic-coated trinkets, and random sports-themed souvenirs. I even made it a point not to buy a DVD from the place.

Napkin Engagement Ring by Belinda Roddie Feeling so tender, when a man pushes steel around your knuckle, asks you to love him, and later, he'll get you a "real" ring, made of crystalline constructs of human whims and madness whenever something along the lines of "shiny" pops up in a wisp of imagination.

After we measured out the cocoa and butter and flour and sugar, we took a break because I inconceivably twisted my wrist while pulling the egg whisk out of the cramped drawer of cooking tools and utensils. Now Sadie was sidled up to me at the dining room table, as I applied a bag of frozen meatballs against my arm where the muscle was turning black and blue. "You can say you were in a great cooking accident," she declared with amusement.

Stitch by Belinda Roddie Sewed a button on your belly, tightened skin over skin like lapel seduction. Kissed the puckered lips I had made beneath your breasts, licked the licorice biscuit taste away from your orifices. You didn't cry when I fixed you, re-stuffed you, made you fuller and brighter and more colorful in your cheeks, your thighs squeezing the blanket into a snake without hissing, sticking glue in silly places on my spine, slipping a tongue into my ear as I snipped and stitched up time.

He found his life in the simple arts of dipping a stick into watercolors sprayed out in streams in a private river he kept flowing through his bedroom, perched on a bridge that he built from bamboo and stray strings of bark and sinews holding together his dreams on a monument, constantly stroking the vigor back into the walls of his old establishment owned by a father who didn't exactly enjoy the brightness of Picasso or insanity of Van Gogh.

Don't Be Stupid by Belinda Roddie Don't be stupid climbing up the rope ladder leading to the lighthouse swirling watercolors into a foam around your jawline. Don't try calling for your mother to come over with a bottle of aspirin, to cool your hot nerves, bundled up like frayed strings from the same scarf. Don't be fooled into thinking that someone's out there to save you when you hear your ribs screaming against the jagged knives below, daggers icy with oceanic wet dreams, trying to soothe you with bubbles, calm you with froth, end you with salt.