My Cardboard Balcony

I'm Sorry, But I Had To by Belinda Roddie She fired the gun eight times, and eight bullets shrieked from its dripping nose. They left red kisses on the front of her father's shirt, her brother's blazer, her mother's blouse. Gray, blue, and white, stained by a foreign, violent love. All of them survived their wounds, and she was pulled screaming into the maw of a police car, its jaws snapping her up like raw meat, wailing as it spun her into a world of bars and tiny windows, windows that, when she peered out of them, only had drab, black and white views, fragments of sterile life before the alcohol and the drugs and the fights, before her husband clawed at her face and wished aloud that she were dead, before he poured toxins from highballs into her brain so that she thought her family was the enemy. She could only look at views the size of bullet holes.

It was easy to transform my image once I left high school and settled into college. I cut my hair. I wore flannel shirts instead of blouses. I bound my chest and let my kneecaps sneer from holes in my black jeans. My mother wouldn't let me start hormone therapy until I had gotten my degree, and I didn't really have another choice - I was on her healthcare, and I followed her rules. Still, I came up with a name I preferred more than my birth moniker: Ethan. That suited me.

O' Poor, Doomed Sailor by Belinda Roddie Lend your ear to the sirens. If you try to speak to them, they'll drown you out. Learn to breathe bubbles if they drag you beneath the ocean's blackened foam. They'll tie your wrists and ankles together with seaweed stronger than steel. Drink their brine as if it's nectar. Their kisses will leave your lips blue and your mouth very numb. Once you get used to it, you will be fine with floating aimlessly within their cold, endless territory.

Everything in the kitchen was complete and utter chaos. Dishes were collecting in damp, dirty piles in the once pristine sink. Pans scattered on the stove top reeked of dried eggs and coconut oil. I was just trying to grab a sponge when the dog bounded across the slippery wooden floor, knocking into a counter and, of course, taking down a full bottle of vinaigrette that exploded into wet, spicy shrapnel before my eyes.

Three, Two... by Belinda Roddie My brain is a time bomb going tick tick tock, and if I blow my fuse, there's no way to make it stop.

Jessie spun a tale quickly for her parents when they demanded why she had been out so late the past night. The bruises on her arms, of course, helped boost any so-called credibility she was trying to attain, and I watched wide-eyed as her mother pulled the girl into her arms, soothing her and cooing her as she spilled her crocodile tears. Jessie had told her parents that my brother, her boyfriend, had abused her - in reality, the contusions were merely on her body because she had hit first, and Todd had fought back.

Leslie's necktie had come undone in the scuffle, so I took her to the bathroom and helped her straighten herself out. As my fingers tensed while tying the Windsor knot, I couldn't avoid the warmth that spread from my palms out to my wrists. Leslie seemed to notice it, too - her breath shortened and came out in quick, huffy bursts, and before she lost balance, she caught herself against my shoulders, her cufflinks glittering on her sleeves.