My Cardboard Balcony

"You have a visitor, my dear." I crane my head from my Chekhov anthology. Torn away from the cherry orchard for a bit. The red blossoms dissipate for a dark face. Thick, black beard. Watery smile. "Howard?" "Came to see you, girl," he purred. "Heard you weren't feeling well." "Pretty obvious, huh?" I sneered, gesticulating at the IV drilled into my arm. I smiled as he waved a bouquet of tulips at me.

I wore beanies before they were cool. I dreamed about Jennifer Lawrence before it was cool. Kissed men before it was cool. Kissed girls before it was cool. Got sweaty at a nightclub with my shirt riding up against my exposed chest, way before it was cool. I smoked before it was cool. Drank before it was cool. Snorted, coughed, and choked before it was cool. Got sick before it was cool. Died before it was cool.

by Belinda Roddie "The kitten and the raptor are actually very closely related, if you think about it." Hannah wrinkled her nose. She had hardly touched the mixed greens on her plate, the water barely making a ripple in its tall glass. "I don't see how." I flexed my fingers as if I had claws, then chomped at thin air. I didn't really care that the elderly couple sitting across from our booth turned to stare at me once they heard the loud clicking of my teeth. I did like how it made Hannah laugh, though. "Okay, you win, Mister Raptor. Do that raptor squeak that Alan keeps talking about." I did. The old man coughed loudly, as if his throat clearing would put an end to the presumed nonsense. But Hannah giggled and clapped her hands. "Bravo. I knew I had it in you." "So what were you planning on doing after this?" I asked, returning my attention to my half-eaten burger, shreds of cheese sadly drooping from its torn ses...

My dog wouldn't speak when I told her to speak. I tried everything. Shakespeare, Browning, Lord Byron. She didn't think highly of the poets. Unless said poet clawed out of his grave and brought a chewy bone with him. So I stuck to basic requests. A bark or something. Anything in the canine language. She just rolled over and waited for me to rub her belly. Not a single sound from her throat.

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.