My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie Two clean-cut young men in shirts and ties stood on my door step and asked me if I had heard the message of their Lord, Aslan. I promptly invited them inside for drinks and a good old-fashioned literary conversation. They were pretty satisfied with the fact that I had appreciated the joke. In truth, the boys were named Ivan and Jonathan, and they wanted to promote literacy to at-risk students. We were young adults all living in a low-income district of the city, and many of the elementary schoolers were English learners. Ivan and Jonathan had taken on the door-to-door routine as partially a joke, partially a message on literature. Unfortunately, many people hadn't gotten the hint. "We actually wound up at a Mormon's house, and he was none too happy about our set-up," sighed Ivan as he enjoyed the bowl of nilla wafers I had set out - I didn't really have a lot of sweets in the house, and my husband had used some of the cookies for a cheeseca...

The Esther plague had begun with a woman named Esther. She had been an average fifty-something who had traveled to a country no one had heard of and not even an able-minded scholar would scrawl onto an atlas. It was too small and seemingly too insignificant to be noted by anyone of any notable status. That is, until Esther returned with half of her face turning purple. It had started with the color, and the pain had been the final symptom. She had transformed into something entirely different in the middle.

During certain days - and sometimes as long as weeks at a time - my opinions of my self-adequacy fluctuate. It's no secret that while I am an obvious extrovert about, say, eighty percent of the time; I, like a lot of other human beings, harbor pretty strong insecurities not just about my looks (weight included), but also about my skill set, perception of talent, social strengths, and relationships. This is not to say I'm paranoid or fragile. After all, I have plenty of moments in which I'll say, "I'm particularly proud of this line" in a story or poem that I might be reading to a friend or family member. And I certainly will be pumped up and optimistic enough to call myself a badass when I do something valuable from time to time. But moments are moments, and moods are moods. And during some spaces of time, my confidence in my self-worth and my work tends to deplete, leaving me in an awkward spot mentally and emotionally. Sometimes I'll feel very tired ...

Rainy Day by Belinda Roddie A hallway to a corner room A sudden draft brings drops of dew Across the carpet, faded white Then while the rain starts falling The dew is gone   Coffee cups all scattered The window drapes are tattered Then one mug falls and shatters Ground to dust upon the carpet Faded white   The old man sits in his easy chair His tabby cat curled in his lap He’s got a strain upon his brain He can’t relax, the raindrops patter The silence gone The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since April 3rd, 2008.

Wheat beer, sliding down slowly, kicking sourdough in the back of the throat as I reach for the soggy jalapeño poppers. Somewhere, someone's head is bumping into my shoulder, like a sad puppy who just wanted to lap up the spilled Guinness in the floor, where some drunken klutz let the pint glass drop and explode like an Irish heart does after an old-fashioned wake. And the keening starts, and I drink again.

The Has-Been of Ninth Street by Belinda Roddie The has-been of Ninth Street had once been known as a great entertainer, conjurer, and social man who could brew up a storm of laughter, snap a card out in a blur, and buy rounds for each patron in a bar. The ladies fawned for his smile, his booze-stained libido, and his coin tricks. "Sir, you are a temptation," they would croon from the pane of his window. Yes, this has-been had sought the attention of thousands, no, millions of adoring eyes, and he truly thought he'd be the greatest Is-Now of all. Then people moved on. Just like that. Not one wave goodbye to the nice temporary grave.

People tend to be happier when they get a bronze medal instead of a silver. Like Jake, for instance. He got bronze and did a victory lap around the racetrack, shouting his head off with the stars and stripes spray-painted yet somehow still billowing on his back. His brother, Tom, two years back, got silver for the same meter run. He wanted to melt it down and make himself a watch. Because to him, that seemed more productive than remembering he could have gotten gold.