My Cardboard Balcony

Late Night Snack by Belinda Roddie I found the cut off crusts of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich in our beagle's food bowl, already growing moldy. You were curled up on the couch, watching soccer and giggling every time a fullback pretended that he had been severely injured. When I reached down to stroke your hair, you flinched like I was going to hit you. If only you knew I am not like your mother or your father, looming over you in the smallest corner of your room when you were a child, snapping a belt to make it sound like a snake lunging to strike, refusing to let you eat cookies and milk - and peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches, the sugar oozing from your pores as I finally got to kiss you good night.

Ketchup on my sleeve, coffee on my pants, still not going to change when I join my friends to dance. There'll be whiskey sloshed around, and beer spilled on the ground, and I'll just swirl with all the stains and never form a frown. I'll go home with the smears, my make-up wet like tears, the splatters of all three meals as I sleep for thirty years.

Before You Go To Rehearsal by Belinda Roddie We kiss as you microwave your pasta dinner, the aroma of feta and spinach filling our modest apartment, every corner of the room sprinkled with the night's cosmic confetti.

"Are you my client?" I stared at the woman who was supposed to be my lawyer. She didn't look any older than twenty, but something about the way she held herself and the way her eyebrows knit together in that professionally curious frown told me she had a lot more years on her than I thought. Without saying anything else, she led me into her tiny yet air conditioned office and offered me a piece of gum. "It's cinnamon," she admitted when I declined. "I know most people don't like cinnamon, but I like a good kick in my teeth once in a while."

TNT XOXOXO by Belinda Roddie Everything can go wrong in this room full of frayed wires, where one shred of copper leads to nowhere, and the scratched up walls expose innards ready to detonate. You are dynamite in my hands - all I need is to light the fuse. You have been broken, abused, yet you can still do plenty of damage. I know your teeth can find comfort in the indentations of my skin, but before you bite me, I'll press the red button, cut the blue cord, and trigger our mutual explosion.

She appeared composed from a distance, calm and collected. It wasn't until I got closer, through the dust and fumes of bourbon, that I noticed the dirty tear streaks close to her jaw. She had neglected to wipe the offending water away, and now the bartender was serving her a tall glass of something probably very strong with a fixed look. "Don't make me cut you off, okay?" he warned, which confused me, because the woman seemed sober, even though upset.

"You build rockets? Neat!" squealed Tiffany, jumping up and down on the balls of her feet. "How do you do it?" I smiled and took the time to explain the various types of rockets I made. Some were as simple as hollowed out soda cans and some carbonation. Others, of course, were more tinkered and detailed. Of course, I expected her to want to learn how to make rockets immediately, so I excused us both from the dinner table so we could slip into my workshop.