My Cardboard Balcony

Exiting Atmosphere by Belinda Roddie I flatten these streets in my black men's jacket, my maroon men's shirt, my black women's slacks and my brown women's shoes. I feel like I can take over the world and bounce it on a string like an overpopulated, CO2-choked yo-yo, yanking it off its axis and letting it drop along the cosmos into the freezing chaos of a second existence. When I remove my shades, I can feel the sweat crystallize on the bridge of my nose. I let the beads descend to my chin. I am melting in the bay area summer heat, and I am merging into a pseudo-metropolitan galaxy where the noise is all white and garbled and unable to communicate anything to anyone.

Study, study, study That was the solitary word of advice my parents gave me when my grades still remained mediocre. Here's the thing, though: I was  studying. When I wasn't out running errands or working my part-time job at Mister Chu's doughnut shop, I was sacrificing my social life, sports, and extracurriculars to stare at a biology textbook and wonder just what the fuck it was trying to tell me. The results were in: I was not the academic type, and no amount of note-taking or reviewing was going to change that reality.

It's The Little Things by Belinda Roddie I left you a rose with a note sleeping beside it, and an ice cream sandwich is waiting for you in the freezer. Here's to better days and more laughter despite the roars of lambs who wished that they could be lions.

I didn't like going to the science lab because I always seemed to need to deal with something corrosive, and managing chemicals that could possibly eat away at everything, including me, was nervewracking. The only person who could get me through the class was my lab partner, Sharon. Sharon was fun enough, wearing a bandana and safety goggles as she turned on the bunsen burner and made noises like she was setting off multiple firecrackers in her mouth. She made me laugh sometimes, but even if I didn't laugh, I felt calmer for at least a minute or two.

The Elements by Belinda Roddie blowing smoke out of a pipe creates a constellation of fire that rises up to meet the heavens, which are collapsing down upon us, so they meet somewhere in the middle, where the clouds spit out their rain like a philosopher spitting personal truths in an end of the world tirade

After the party had toned down somewhat, four of us broke away from the rest of the group and went out for alcoholic milkshakes and cheap appetizers at the closest bland diner. As we sipped on Bailey's and mint and chewed on rubbery mozzarella sticks, we got on the topic of high school, and how lousy it really was. I remembered going to prom with the class stoner, who spent the entire evening getting high in the parking lot and then getting dragged away by the cops. "That's nothing," my friend Alec said, "compared to the date that took me to the worst pizza place ever when I was a sophomore."

There are dozens of mosquitos buzzing above our heads, as we slather on repellent and pass around cans of cold cider as we look out over the crest leading to the lake. The earth here is so unstable, but we've found a patch that holds our weight. I sip from my can and you sip from yours, and then we switch and giggle when we taste each other's spittle. When I reach for your hand, a bug settles on my wrist, ready to dig in. And you swat it, hard, making my fingers tremble.