My Cardboard Balcony

¿Estás Borracha? by Belinda Roddie "¿Estás borracha?" a bus-goer asked me plaintively more than skeptically as I dripped mucus across his armrest, dangerously close to staining the sleeve of his Giants jacket. I promptly forgot how to reply in his preferred language, so I laughed and sprayed a non-verbal negative response to his question that I'm fairly certain he didn't quite fathom. Disgusted, he looked at who must have been his wife, cradling their five-to-six-year-old daughter in her arms. She had the orange "SF" stamped on her cheek, the proper temporary tattoo demonstrating an imposed, juvenile enthusiasm for a game with balls and sticks either in a man's hands or between his legs. And I chuckled. And I spat some more. And it wasn't until I was off the bus and halfway down Valencia that I came up with a response that I so wished I could have yanked from my soaked cerebrum sooner. "No, no estoy borracha. Sólo estoy c...

It was growing exceedingly difficult for Ms. Stein to write letters to her grandson, for the arthritis in her right hand caused the entire body of tissue beneath her knuckles and skin to flare up so it was like someone was branding her arm with an iron similar to searing the flesh off of a cow. But she insisted on writing letters - she loved her penmanship, and she sincerely loathed computers. Nasty metal things, eating up money and time.

"Is that girl walking on stilts?" "No, dude. She's just really tall." "...That tall?" "Yeah." "Like, how tall is that, anyway?" "I don't know. Six feet? Six foot one?" "Dude." "Easy, man. It's no biggie." "Dude, she's taller than me!" "And is that a problem?" the girl asked as she sidled past us in the line, the smell of fast food cheeseburgers lingering on her employee uniform.

by Belinda Roddie "Have I ever told you about when I was a carrier pigeon in the Great War?" There was a heavy but hearty sigh of affirmation in the space. Aloysius smiled. He swirled the Barbera in his glass so that the red glazed the brim, waiting to sip it as he eyed his dear brother, Zac. "Ah, yes," he murmured. "It's a tired story, I assure you, but 1917 - that was the year to fly. It all went very well until just the right amount of shrapnel hit me in the right wing. Took me down quickly, into the mud of a war-baked Germany. I died rather quickly." Zac nodded solemnly before turning to his beer. Nestled beside him was his wife, Claire, whose deep oaken eyes resembled very much those of a fawn nestled in the spring of the suburbs. His cousin, Sweeney, sat in the easy chair closest to the door, smoking one of those newfangled electronic cigarettes that breathed out plumes of vapor instead of smoke. Zac never would understand the app...

The June heat drove the entire baseball team in a frenzy, and soon, practice looked more like a barbecue than a training. The coach had to beg the catcher several times to stop eating a hot dog from his giant leather mitt. The outfielders actually started a large debate on the field regarding the Roman philosophers. Left field won, of course.

Well, how about that shit? I guess I'm twenty-four. Not quite as mechanically young as I was anymore. This age ain't quite twenty-five; I guess it's got some bite. Got more of a tang and effervescence than Corona Lite. I'm more than empty calories, I'm not an easy meal aimed to please you or your taste buds. I just make it real, trying to find out a solution to societal collapses, flood your consciousness with thought, overload your synapses. Nerve ends igniting, overlighting with colors berserk - from a mediocre twenty-four-year-old, that's some work. I don't aim to bring flavor, or enact some petty favor. I'll just keep the keyboard hot to bring you words that you can savor. Birthday was today. Low-key for the most part, but nice. I don't consider twenty-four a milestone, even though it did bring out that weird, almost rap-style impromptu poem you just read. The thing is, twenty-four can be a solid number, so I'm going to enjoy it....

To Love Poems by Belinda Roddie all I can offer is percussive experience, tom-tom heartaches and timpani heartbreaks, but what do I know besides wishy-washy wishes and projecting my own insecurities to a white-knuckled, neck-cracking, finger-snapping audience who probably knows where my hands have been. yet all I hear as I stare at rainbow hips and neon lips kissing dew off the bumps on my face is the incessant lub-dub, love-dub, hug-love, fuck -love right in the tender spot below the leather belt that some would prefer for spanking. spare me the pretense of a blue-leaved lover or tell me that running away from the brink of desperation rips the road out from under my boots and brings me back to kaleidoscope focus. there’s a pattern riding on horseback and shooting a colt dragoon at the first aid membrane sealing my infantile fate. all I can do is bleed the pattern, all the blacks and ...