My Cardboard Balcony

What's Up With Her? by Belinda Roddie "What's up with her?" I thought as the girl spun and wobbled in the middle of the dance floor. It seemed like she had been overcome with emotion, or she was in a trance, or she was doing some weird ritual for all of us to witness. When she thrust her body forward, it was spiritual. When she dipped low, I felt a carnal lust in my wrought bones, growling like it wanted to break from its ivory cage. The whole bar seemed to freeze in time, the walls washed red from the lights above our heads. Feeble souls were strengthened, hearts were lifted, and our brains focused on her , cleansed of life's ugly stains.

Randall wanted to install solar panels on the roof of his house, but on the same day he planned to call someone about it, he was fired from his comfortable cubicle job at the call center, allegedly because he had not sold enough "data plans" to enough customers. I didn't ask him too many questions - I just let him sniffle about a "lost opportunity to help the environment" as I drank my beer, wondering why he was more worried about the solar stuff than the fact that he no longer had a stable income.

Not My Kind Of Afterparty by Belinda Roddie Your grimace stays on tight like an extra skin. Your hummus-stained fingers grip the stair rail. You are so fucking drunk, but somehow, you can still see only one of me, and not two. I'll hold you steady with my gaze as you climb three flights. I'll find you on the balcony tomorrow, fast asleep, with the spicy dip still on your lips and pita chip crumbs on your jeans, your crossfadedness fading. Don't worry - I'll get Chad to delete the photos. I'll make sure that when afternoon comes around, your dad will be out of the house. And I'll try to make you a waffle with ice cream on top, because that's your favorite cure for a hangover - even though it doesn't do jackshit, and you'll throw up on my shirt and giggle as I rub your shoulders, waiting for your frown to come back again.

Boy, OneWord.com has been a little spastic with its updates lately. No new entry today.

Get Out Of Here, Kid by Belinda Roddie Skullman's out looking for you, boy. He's dressed in black and pissed as Hell. He's carrying two Colts as slick as your hips, and he's ready to stud your waistline with steel. You better think about rushing your ass down to the border, hide yourself in a bag of grain and get shipped to Mexico. You'll be fed like the cattle on a small, remote farm, and when you're old enough, you'll head back with your belt drooping and your eyes blazing under a cowboy hat, so you can jam a shotgun barrel up Skullman's bony nostril and fire three times in a row just to make sure he's dead.

Matthew kept a little buddha in his desk - a red, carved trinket he had bought at a stand in Thailand, and already collecting dust like it was accumulating a new robe. Matthew grew older and forgot about the figurine - that is, until he was pushing the old furniture to the garage when he heard a rattling in the top drawer. He curiously fished the buddha out of its hiding place and held it in his weathered hand, not noticing at first that his vision was beginning to blur.

A Victim Of Unknown Circumstances by Belinda Roddie Wearing red gloves kept the scars away from the sun, so they stayed white and raw and rubbery, like the pith of an orange. Buttoning the coat up to the last brass brooch kept the cold out when standing in the river, and the boots with steel zippers kept the water from clogging the dying skin between the rows of crackling, wood-like toes. Eaten away by the elements, I remained clothed and concealed. Still, she saw my face from time to time, and her kisses made the scabs sting and threaten to erode. I was always patchy from my own decay - a skeleton that never actually revealed the brittle bone beneath, a husk you couldn't even suck marrow from if you were hungry enough. But she laid into me, until she stripped the leather from my fingers, and the air made my flesh gasp for sustenance - pink, puckered, but never fully healed.