My Cardboard Balcony

She Loves Her by Belinda Roddie She loves her, no matter what her mom says or how her father scoffs. She will not yield to "biblical" demands. Still, what a mess her romance has left. She cannot quite wield persuasion at her parents and is told she cannot stay unless she will repent and "turn to God." Her heart heavy as gold, though not as lovely, she packs up a bent suitcase and goes to the only place she believes she can be safe - yes, it's the home of her dear girlfriend, loved by family and supported by friends. The seed is sown, and she is welcomed. She loves her, and she will not give up that truth for anything.

I sold my bicycle for forty dollars and continued the trek on foot. The man who bought the rusty thing from me was more than generous - he even offered me some lunch since, to him, I appeared so starved. I told him he was already kind enough with my payment, so I found the closest (and of course grungiest) diner I could find on the side of the road to buy myself a burger and a milkshake. Despite the place's sloppy appearance, the food was delicious, and the waitress who served me was very sweet.

Her Bodily Treasures by Belinda Roddie She drew honeycomb from her ear and lit it in a dark room, the amber spreading beneath her hand and molding shadows into sticky statuettes, ready to dance for dinner. I watched the wax melt into a perturbed puddle of sweetness, the lost hum of bees haunting me as I held my ribcage between my fingers. All the heat was lost from us; all the gold was lost from us. But from her orifices, she pulled the last luxuries of a past life into the dusk. She saved dawn for last. I saw pink stain the skies again. I could hardly breathe. There was silver in both our eyes.

There sat the lonely gentleman, with his crumpled hat in his hands, his chin lifted so that his beard pointed toward his assumed heavens. His eyes were hidden behind very, very thick glasses, and even the lens seemed glazed with a personal fog that he could not shrug off his visage. I tried to sit beside him, but it was as if the wind pushed me away from the bench. It made me wonder if the lonely stranger, in the end, was meant to be abandoned all along.

Alien Abduction by Belinda Roddie There was gold dust left on the bottom of my shoes. There was light beaming down upon me. The rain was washing away the clods of brown, imposing earth, exposing new flesh underneath. Flesh as white and smooth as an oyster's devoured pearl. I tipped my hat and scraped the dirt off of my arms. The hair follicles on my wrist seemed clogged with something. When I pulled a tuft out, it gleamed with a silver intensity that did not seem real or terrestrial. My prospecting days were over. I was going home. Their home.

I decided to pay Doctor Vox a visit on the eve of September twentieth. It was a particularly warm evening, yet it did not stop me from wearing the scarf that my mother had sewn for me, tightly wound around my raw throat. I stopped by the towering house where the doctor resided and knocked three times on the door - just as she always requested. After a good ten or so seconds, the door creaked open, but I couldn't seem to see who exactly had come to greet me in the first place.

Every Year by Belinda Roddie I can fake being deaf to the storm approaching my front porch, or I can remember that, with every year, there is a growing heat in the sky, a rumbling beneath my feet, a scent of sulfur in the soggy soil, a tint of fear caught in my irises, casting a slight glow upon the dry plains that crave water, that crave cold, that crave life.