My Cardboard Balcony

It's been kind of a crazy week for me. Lots of kids to tutor, new training sessions for GirlSMART, new students to tend to (one of which doesn't know English so I have to teach him entirely in Spanish. This'll be interesting). New projects, new formulas, new strategies. It's a new year, and everything's new. Especially when it comes to planning for my future. Tonight, at my aunt's house in Davis, I signed up for both the CBEST and the CSET tests for teaching. Which is good. Both tests cost a pretty penny to take, so I better not blow it, but it's good that I signed up. It's only the first step in the direction toward officially teaching. After that, it's looking at credentials and potential graduate schools. ...Yeah, that's the part that's freaking me out a bit. There are a few fundamental things about my life that I want to hold on to or I want to push toward. But from what I've been told, a credential program (obviously) takes a l...

Rude Motor by Belinda Roddie Christine, caress these weary fingers stained with oil Callused from toiling over your vintage framework I want to see your hubcaps spinning, chrome and silver Your tires tearing up fresh asphalt as my vision turns Into one big, crimson blur behind your heavy shield It’s just you and me, and your rude motor Christine, let me breathe in your sweet perfume It constricts me and gently submits me to the confines of your wheel I love to see your bright eyes glowing, glaring At the passerby who stop to stare at the awkward pair, The silhouette against your amber gaze It’s just you and me, and your rude motor Christine, couldn’t you have been a pretty girl instead? A golden-eyed girl, with red hair and red lips So you could hold me without anybody looking? You leave scars when you bite down on me And when you kiss me, you kiss too hard And when you groan, you rattle my teeth and shake my bones But come evening, I’ll b...

Hear that? That's the sound of a hollow drum in my chest. That's the sound of the tiny little rat skeletons playing marimba on my ribcage. The rat skeletons symbolize something significant. I don't know what. Either way, the things chew at my lungs, tying my arteries into red ribboned knots as I attempt to sleep. I am not happy with my breathing. I am not well. I cannot wait for yestermorrow.

The Giant Wanted Freedom by Belinda Roddie The giant wanted freedom from the flesh, the flesh that forced him to grow still taller and taller, his hips swishing against the tips of the California redwoods. He had once been a boy of a mere five feet, and now he didn't mind that quite so much. The doctors could not do much for him now - his brain, his lungs, his heart. They would give out, unable to uphold the mightiest of skeletons, massive and hard as a mountain. Poor giant. How I wished I could grow to reach your heights so I could kiss your cheek without helicopters high in tow. Before you toppled, thought you'd like to know.

"You're going to make me choose?" "Um, yeah, dude," replied Oliver. "Deal with it." "Bro," I hissed, "you suck hardcore." "And you suck at bro-speak. Which is stupid, by the way. Now where do you want to go?" I squeezed the steering wheel like I was trying to compress it or mold it into gooey clay. I didn't know what restaurant appealed to me right now.

Brainquake by Belinda Roddie Definition: when a man loves another man who loves another man who loves a woman in a speedo sipping kool-aid from a water fountain, and the aches and shaking sensation of your sense-making process shifts into a thunderous denouement of relationship analysis of relationship analysis of relationship analysis, the kind you drink beer to in a hotel room at two o'five in the morning, and the Fairmont is two blocks away and Richter just had a heart attack by the Golden Gate Bridge, and plates move with meals still on them and forks tipped with trembling succulence, when the man who loves another man sleeps with the woman and licks kool-aid powder off her curves and dreams about a climax in a stone mall unscathed by current events.

They won all three games in one clean sweep. To celebrate, all of the players went to the local bar to get drunk on bad tequila and even cheaper vodka. When that was over with, the fullback vomited into the nearest potted plant outside the pub, and the goalie stumbled into the middle of the street and got hit by an oncoming van. Don't worry, he didn't die. He did, however, lose all feeling in his legs for two weeks. Which was kind of fortunate because of how painful compound fractures could be.