My Cardboard Balcony

Your Sparkly Shirt by Belinda Roddie Your sparkly shirt was simply all the rage at the student showcase last Saturday, and when you strutted across that big stage, you cheered me up with your little parade. You always seem to have the clothes I like but never could wear, given, well, my look and size. I simply could not do it right, that sassy appearance you never shook off. Let me be as sparkly as you one day, flaunting all my sequins to the crowd and tantalizing lovers. I am done with being frumpy while you shine out loud. Some day, I'll have a shirt like yours, which I will wear on display under the spotlight.

We blasted through the door and waved our blades around furiously. But what we saw wasn't an army, or even a gang of thugs. Five old ladies, squat and quiet, were wearing bowlers, smoking cigars, drinking whiskey, and playing cards in the den. One looked at us and coughed. "Wanna play?" she rasped.

Don't Try by Belinda Roddie You think you're hot stuff when you try a new umbrella boy for size, but I see right through you, so listen - please don't try to prove to guys you know that you're willing to drive on their rough road 'cause I have seen the way you look at me. The flush in your cheeks as you stare at ladies' smiles and hands and hair just remind me of the trouble that you face. I wish there was a way that I could brush away the guilt that flies across your shoulders when you look away. So don't try to run, don't try to hide your feelings that you lock inside, the kind that'll scream until it's set free. Don't try to love a feller's kiss when he can't bring you that much bliss, and please don't try to keep your love from me. We trade words on a yellow moon when nights are hot and drinks are cool and petty intoxication brings us down. I watch the way booze chills your mind and makes you grab m...

To say love is eternal tries to imply that we are eternal. That our feelings are eternal. And maybe they are. After all, if after we die, our compiled energy bursts outward and goes elsewhere, who knows where it might end up. Perhaps eternal love isn't merely compartmentalized to two soulmates. Perhaps the outward energy we spare to those around us, pocketed and shared and doled out and re-doled out, contribute to a permanence in compassion.

I Wish by Belinda Roddie "I wish I were as brave as you," she whispered to my sweater sleeve, the wool scratching a streaming nose, the fireside biting at our feet. "You will be," I breathed into her hair, and I tossed an arm forward and caught her heart before it fell in the form of salt. "I promise."

The film's director went outside to answer questions from some of her frostbitten fans, who had hovered around the corners of the movie theater just dying to see her face. She had done something truly remarkable with cinema - something an old rival found disconcerting. "There's a reason why women have only one Best Director Oscar to their name," he scowled over a glass of Tullamore Dew. "Because they don't get the film world. So why do they care about her so much?" "Nice one, asshole," grunted the bartender.

Merciful Highlander by Belinda Roddie When the spoon hits the back of the palate just right, it tingles something extraordinary, and the lamb lingers on the spice spectrum just perfectly. The Scotsman tries a new song out on a younger lady who spins glass behind the barber shop, her hands hot and sticky from the outpouring of color in steaming streams. He wants to impress her and take her to Edinburgh, where the rain accompanies a chorus against the high grass and dark trees, and the stout is poured thick and frothy from the tap down the old boy's throat. And every time a stranger walks in from Inverness, there's a little skip beneath his right shoe, and the pillar displaying the preconceived end of the world leads to a pub where the stew is offered as hot as the Guinness is provided cold. And the Scot eats the stew, and it lingers perfectly.