My Cardboard Balcony

"You're going to go for that?" Sam nodded with a peaceful smile as she pulled out what appeared to be a magenta waistcoat from the bargain rack. As she slipped her arms through the sleeves, she transformed from the seventeen-year-old chemistry genius that Arthur knew to a divine, regal looking specimen. She could almost leap onto a white stallion, snatch a beautiful sword, and gallop off to save a princess.

by Belinda Roddie Herbert Campote lived a very average life, in a very average town, on a very average street, in a very average house, near very average people, until one very average day when everything changed. It started with fever. His wife Lucy had come down with an outrageously high temperature. The first night, it was one hundred three. The second, one hundred five. Herbert had Lucy wheeled to the hospital, where the doctors searched for something - anything - to explain why her body was reacting so negatively. But they found nothing. Tests came back negative, so all they could was spoon medicine into her constricted throat and hope for the best. It didn't stop there, however. Not only did his wife began to suffer convulsions, but his neighbor, Charles, began showing the same symptoms. It was odd, because Charles and Lucy never interacted, so no contagion could honestly be spread. To make things stranger, after said seizures, Herbert and Charles' wife Laura would ...

Charlotte wanted to burrow into her mound of sheets and blankets and bury himself under the fabric like she were hiding in a cave. She pulled the miniature flashlight out of her pocket and, remembering the page she had marked, began to read the book that her father had forbidden her to touch the night before. Sure, there were some rather risque things to read, but she was enticed by it. And she stayed up for hours reading the characters kiss again and again.

So lately, besides my blog, I've been attempting to either begin or revive small to medium-sized writing projects. This has proven to be exceedingly difficult, considering my energy level after finishing a day at work, and I sometimes even put off my OneWord and Poet Corner entries to ceaselessly play Tetris online and watch Youtube videos until my shoulders seize up and my back starts hurting. I'm going to have such a hard time walking by the time I turn sixty. Besides little worries backing up in my mind, like my struggle to lose weight and stop eating so much damn chocolate, and my little concerns with how well I'm doing my job at the school I work at, I've simply been sort of unmotivated. Of course, with every passing day, I come up with comedic ideas, dramatic ideas, all sorts of ideas - they just never really make it onto a paper or a screen. I haven't written a song in months, episode ten of my TV show is only partially written, and overall, it's been...

Beside the Parlor by Belinda Roddie I never liked this room beside the parlor, This tiny, insignificant space, all grays and yellows, Always stinking of garlic for reasons I do not know – There is nothing special in this room, only a table with Coffee rings instead of coffee cups, a chair meant for Leaning against, not sitting – the springs would serve as rough Against a person – and a portrait of a Frenchman Who is no Napoleon, no King Louis, just a man of Thinning mustache and little worth, save for his smile, Painted without the flash of teeth but with the Implication of some knowledge hidden away from Common people, people who tend to overlook the fellow’s Eyes that seem to pierce the flesh itself – Perhaps I’ll stay in here a little longer. The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since November 24th, 2008.

Atop the cliffs of Moher, I saw the sea spray floating across the jagged rocks, inviting me to jump and become the foam. The foam of a tankard that I had drunk from far too many times before. The suds of a bathtub where my father had lain in before his head lolled back and life seeped from him, starting with his failing heart. I did not think about the woman who had brought me here, who now took pictures of the view.

It Stung A Little by Belinda Roddie It stung a little as she pressed the ice pack to her face, the purpling skin beneath forming a ring around her swollen eye. She did not know what she would say if her father asked how she got the bruise. Her friends would surely ask as well. But she did not want to divulge the truth. Not about the one she thought had loved her with gentle lips and gentle hands and gentle fingers, too. Her ears still rang from the profanity screamed across the room. Her tongue still felt tied in knots because she could not retort. She removed the pack when water seeped into the grotesque mosaic of her new wound.