My Cardboard Balcony

What a week. That's really the only way I can see it: What a week. In more ways than one. Positive and negative connotations. Both happy moments and very emotional moments. Mostly episodes of massive anxiety, second guessing, and yes, lots and lots of tears. I had to make some very big decisions this week. After a weekend of looking at teaching credential programs with my very helpful aunt, I chose to push off doing a credential until 2014 after several nights of sobbing and wringing my hands about it. Yes, the decision was hard. Yes, I am genuinely concerned about what my aunt will think. Obviously, the work we did together was not in vain - I'm taking the tests I need to at least work in substitute teaching, and I have all the materials and knowledge necessary to apply for credentials much further in advance. The bottom line is, I shot myself in the foot by not applying sooner and also by not saving enough money to go to school and still be able to pay off...

Autumn Leaves by Belinda Roddie Spinning wheels and painted faces, the festival leaves traces Of ash and sand on every spot that it stands It says, “Offer me kindness in these festivities And I will make you the color of autumn leaves.”   Melting ice on powdered lips, puckered in a hideous kiss Upon a dragon’s snout as he offers yet another stout To satisfy the ones who ooze mud from their pores While molten silver in their fingers is sucked into their arteries Their faces are covered in sores as they age like autumn leaves   Calming flame that burns my cheeks and turns my eyes from a forest green To a smoky gray, as if I were blind and could not see past my own mind But I see colors, red and blue, on the noses of silly youth But the blue is from silly tears of off-kilter joy As they tear the limbs off of their wooden toys The soldiers in bloody piles, but smiles still aim to please   The festival takes place in ...

Go on ahead, she had said to me. I'll catch up, she persisted to me. And yet here I was, alone in the mountains, sitting in a tent and waiting for her to appear from the blizzard. Maybe she had fallen off a cliff. Or been eaten by a bear. Or maybe, in my addled yet spontaneously creative mind, she had fallen off a cliff while being eaten by a bear. That would make a good story. Or at least a very surreal Youtube viral video. I lit the fire and sat by the frost.

One Thousand Lamps by Belinda Roddie One thousand lamps lit up one somber night, the ember faces of one thousand dead young girls who had assisted in the fight for independence on a rocky red shore. Each girl had fought to attend school. Each bore the scars of their fathers' petty spells and rages. They wished to serve, write, and teach the ideologies of wisdom. Bells would not ring for their endurance, their wit, or their perseverance. But no tyrant could snuff the flames emitting from the lit oil cooking in glass spheres. No man could plant a boot into the teeth of those who cheered for the revolutionaries revered.

They said it was my responsibility to look after Alan. My responsibility to ensure that he didn't break into the booze cabinet again. My responsibility to check his breath to see if he had imbibed enough vodka, black rum, and cheap whiskey to make his liver implode in its cavity. It was my responsibility to take care of him, slap him around, keep him safe. He still died.

Thirteen Hundred Riesling by Belinda Roddie The staunch, fit benefactor prized open a bottle with gold teeth and silver spit, licking the grapevine above his mortar head. No glass for him. He wished to serve the jewel mines of his family. Fortune wrought with spinning wheels. Fragmented heart to hearts with supposed fancy titles. Disinfected within an oaken barrel. "Will you drink for me?" he asked. Not drink with him - for him. Ever the charismatic beggar. Cardboard cut-out of extremities. The sweetness is somewhat palpable. A smile cracks in two above a glass stem. The cinnamon is spread. The ice is served in buckets. The meal is dry and uncouth. But at least the wine is good.

He was going to write a musical about a magical goat who became friends with a unicorn. Only the unicorn was the head of a Unicorn Mafia, hellbent on getting the McDragons to pay their dues. The McDragons owned a little pub in Little Ireland in an unnamed city, and there the ale would be spicy hot - you know, because they were dragons. I listened to him make his pitch and could only nod.