My Cardboard Balcony

"Don't evade the question!" "I don't have to prove anything to you, douchenozzle!" Elijah spat, slamming down his half-empty pint of cheap beer and scowling at Will. "I don't have to tell you anything to show you how much of a man I am!" I wanted to say something - do something - before it got worse. But my husband held me back. I felt his hand on my shoulder, but the tension in my body did not fade.

by Belinda Roddie I was going 92 down the Bay Bridge in my Chevy Astro. The hippie couple in the back still hadn't finished making love and I was afraid the drugs were starting to wear off. Mind you, the dope and the pills I had enjoyed weren't exactly the heaviest, but the high they had granted me was enough to ignore the horny hitchhikers as they attempted to make a baby right on the just freshly steamed backseat of my beloved Neil Armstrong. Yeah. I named my Astro Neil Armstrong. If that's not the most appropriate fucking name, then I don't know what is. Anyway, I screamed my way into the city and dropped those fornicating bastards off at the closest liquor store so they could smoke cigarettes in the afterglow, before I drove almost another mile out to Hotel Griffon. Now, normally I could never afford a room at that little "paradise," as my more "educated" friends liked to call it, but it turned out that a buddy of mine was staying there...

“Mom, where’s the cat?” “Upstairs.” “Where’s Dad?” “Downstairs.” “Where’s the dog?” “Outside.” “And where am I?” I stared at my son, whose eyes as blue as the sapphire on my wedding ring shone back at me with that typical youthful innocence that you read about in those books that are badly written and overly sentimental. Then I blinked and put down the ladle that I had been using to scoop up soup and said, “Well, you’re here, kiddo. You’re in the kitchen with me.”

It's been a roller coaster of a week. And yes, I've used that phrase way too many times. It's getting cliché. Oh, well. Despite not having to student teach at the public high school I'm assigned to this week because the students got a break, I have been dealing with a lot at my private school job, with my university courses, with my ever looming teaching performance assessment, with grading, with developing curricula, and with planning my wedding. There has been a lot going on in my life. And unfortunately this week, I didn't handle my stress in the healthiest of ways. I don't want to go into detail about what I did or did not do because I like the idea of privacy and it really isn't anyone else's business apart from whom I decide to talk to. Just know that I'm safe and surrounded by people who love me and are looking out for me. That's what matters. Truth be told, I was surprised that some sort of breakdown, whether emotional or physical...

Quite Literally by Belinda Roddie There is a tiny goddess living comfortably inside my brain.

Ben took my hand and led me into his modest yet quaint home, a little cottage located off the corner of one of the quietest streets in the time. I was impressed by how cordial he was to me, and how he openly welcomed me to his abode and made sure that I was comfortable the entire time I was there. He was old and gray-haired and sagging along the jowls and cheeks, but the glow in his eyes gave him a youth that I didn't even see in my youngest son, or in my even younger niece.

Thank God For Lesbians by Belinda Roddie Thank God for lesbians! They are so fair and ravishing, their bodies bending toward each shaft of light, their flesh yielding to air that's delicate like sand upon a shore. Two women kiss and fondle each bosom and coo to one another's lullabies that rise and fall like an echoing drum and have melodies that would make kings cry, dabbing at their thick and heavy brows. We are beautiful enough to make men swoon but also understand we're out of reach, a flickering moment in a monsoon, a storm of romance that they cannot touch, that they can only witness - our love's trust.