My Cardboard Balcony

Valley Of The Roses by Belinda Roddie Across the street from the valley of the roses, I see the oil well pump yield to the wind, an obedient Trojan horse dipping its snout into the drinking pool, legs bucking against the browned midnight sky. Ahead of me, headlights wash over a woman in red, who's walking too fast for me to really see if she's a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife. On the way home, I pass a man compulsively patting the same side of his head, either trying to tuck something back into place, or to knock something unwanted away. The suburban sprawl is shallow, and insignificant, but the paper memories are all I have to offer, and I crumple them into meaty wads to toss out my window onto the dead lawn below, where the dogs chew up Mother Nature's robes and the stars are hidden within a hostile and lonely smog.

The scent of baked apples and cinnamon rolls filled the small bakery's lungs up with a sweet, happy air, and I breathed in the aroma and felt its nearly aphrodisiac qualities work its way into my brain. As I looked at all the pastries, I recognized the girl working behind the counter. She kept her cute red curls beneath a gray cap.

Stout In A Drought by Belinda Roddie pub life under hot lights the phantom collects coins and cans, all emptied of the liquid strife that now soaks our swollen intestines you and I you and I you and I are lonely huddled on the corner stools draining tar from pitchers, drooling over deep fried residue outside it's a cold night a cigarette or two is shared the growing chill is amplified when equal parts depression's paired

When I was younger, I took a secret route to school because I was scared of a bully. This bully wasn't a kid you'd expect to be a bully; in fact, he was smaller than I was, scrawny and with glasses big enough to reflect the sun and bounce its rays back into space. He even spoke with a lisp. But he had it out for me and he knew how to throw a punch. I had gotten two black eyes from him before I started walking along a different road.

We Meet Again by Belinda Roddie Sore fingers on frets and old friends by your side, playing songs you wrote years ago that still sound new and fresh in your ears. The night's infantile and infinitesimal in the grand scheme of your life, but it's a light in the sky, a star guiding your smile and time. Or maybe it's just an airplane heading south. At least, that's what caught one of your buddies off guard when figuring out which way was north. It starts to get cold out, but the strings are still hot against your hands. Pizza and waffles are warm in your stomach. Hot cider and whiskey await you when you return to your temporary home for the week. You plan to sleep well tonight, and drink and laugh and sing more as the year closes its December door.

The choir sang, "Hallelujah!" and the walls came tumbling down. I watched the bricks fall one by one in red and brownish dust, the gray plumes rising like the ashes of my ancestors. I saw the whole church crumble around us, until we had nothing but the outside trees, the chilly air, and the intact wooden pews holding us up with the smoke still billowing across the pages of our leather psalm books. And my mother kept singing.

As Frank spun his brand new light-up top that his mother had gotten him for Christmas, his much older cousin sat in the living room, playing the piano. She had been practicing multiple carols and songs, but now that the holiday had come and gone, it was back to the classics. She was about to take a crack at Beethoven when her father, Frank's uncle Sean, walked in hiccuping and slurring.