My Cardboard Balcony

We Are Underwater by Belinda Roddie In the aquarium, I see the schools of silver spiral in a tornado above my head. The glass is the only thing that keeps me from enrolling in their little marine academy and swimming with them. You grab me by the wrists and pull me back so you can look over my shoulder. Outside, it is very hot, but inside, it is dark and cool, and on all sides of us are glittering jellyfish with tentacles made of spider webs but barbs sharper than thorns. Outside, I am very hot. Inside, you are cold, and pressed against my hip, breathing in the recycled air of the enclosed space where, when I look around, I see the flashes and whirlwinds of another world.

Are you trying to threaten me? Because you look so pathetic doing it. You, with your torn denim vest and your too tight jeans and your over the top mohawk. And all the pins naming bands you've never listened to! Tell me, were you trying to become a walking, squawking caricature of some bad boy I'd never want to fuck? Because you're nailing it. Like, hardcore, bro.

Spokes & Patterns by Belinda Roddie Passed a blue and weary minivan on my way home from the bookstore. Its engine was revved. The splinters in my side were as big as kings, hovering over a twenty-one speed throne. When I carried my bicycle to the gate of our complex, I saw that the mail had not been checked. Unbeknownst to me, you were two buildings down by that blue and weary minivan, smoking the black pipe I carved you for Christmas, your fingers like needles sewing into the seams of a young man's embroidered chest. He liked the way you touched him. He told me so when he saw me carrying boxes to my father's car, and laughed after I slapped him. Now the pain in my hips dances like a court jester for a new majesty. I ride my bike to my father's house, pulling at the loose threads where you used to stitch your initials into my skin, and with every undone knot, I become freer.

Do not take the bait. I have to - Do NOT take the bait. Okay? She's hungry for you. Hungry with fangs. If you open that door, if you walk into that room... I love her - IF YOU WALK INTO THAT ROOM , you will not be safe. You will be a frayed salmon in the claws of a bear. You will feel steel on your furry throat like a rat in a mousetrap. Do not take the bait. Do not bite the hook. Do not. I - DO NOT.

Morning With A Marionette by Belinda Roddie I woke up an hour before the show, and I stretched and felt the muscles in my arms and back become elastic, the puppet master tightening the strings throughout my body, making me stiff and taut and ready to dance.

The suit was ready, and Carol was super stoked to pick it up. Only problem: When she went in, the shopkeeper wouldn't sell it to her. He hadn't been the same person she worked with last night, and he was convinced that the suit should be picked up by a man, not a blushing bride-to-be. "How about this," Carol warned the clueless guy, cracking the knuckles on her right hand. "Sell me the suit, or you'll be seeing so many stars and rainbows that you'll start questioning if you're really gay."

There was no real set timeline for the project. Tom just wanted it done. He didn't care if it was done in five months or five years or fifty years. He simply wanted to work on it, work on it to his heart's content and enjoy every fleeting minute or hour or day or longer of it so that life didn't seem so laborious to him. He wrote and rewrote, drew and redrew, filmed and filmed again. He constantly edited. He didn't know who would watch his project, or who would even care to. No matter what, this project was him. And it was all he had.