My Cardboard Balcony

Open Heart Surgery by Belinda Roddie It's a bit dreary to see the rupture in your chest after such a night of passion and endurance. Tragic, really. You always knew how to treat your lover, and now you're leaking all your emotions out on a steel table, while the doctors scowl at you behind masks because you're making them perform such an oh- so-delicate procedure. But the anesthetic's kicking in so beautifully, so you and I are both on a swaying boat in the middle of a lake, and you're trying to fish without any bait, and I'm laughing and throwing worms at you like wriggling, writhing confetti. I'm not going to pray like the rest of your family, but I'll be there with a box of chocolates and some semi-wilted flowers when you wake up, with the needles planted into your weathered tapestry, and the machines all singing you clicking lullabies as your heart tries to beat steadily again, again, again like the rhythm of the water benea...

"What's the matter" crowed Larry. "Jealous?" "No," Stanley quipped, being his usual smartass self. "I'm envious . See, you have a hot girlfriend, and I don't. Now, if I were to madly flirt with your girlfriend and try to get her to fall in love with her, you  would be jealous." Larry's face went bright pink, then darkened to an impressive purple. He grabbed his beer and stormed away from the table, leaving his bewildered girlfriend behind.

Overly Inked by Belinda Roddie I wrote a conspiracy theory on your back, and you had it tattooed in red and black by the man in the gray skullcap at the parlor with white walls splattered with the photographs of a single moment over drinks long ago. He was so careful with the needle, as it buried its nose into your flesh, breathing in its curves and edges, pulsing with nearly arousing euphoria as it spelled out my commentary in calligraphy and flowered misgivings. We took shots of tequila at the bar next door and soaked our lips in lime before we heard the jets flying over our heads. I screamed, "Look at the shadows on the walls!" We knew that the Illuminati was watching us from the cracks in the plaster, sipping cold tea out of plastic mugs, musing over the cryptic code painted across your veins and threatening to leak into your bloodstream, slowing your heart to a deep, somber rhythm, like a drum rumbling beside an acidifying ocean, all the crust...

Let's do some hiking while the sun is setting and put together a picnic in the dry, gold grass. Let's wait until it gets dark out and the first star appears from the curtain like a shy performer ready to take the stage for the first time. We'll count all of the glittering celestial ensemble until there are too many for us to keep track of. And they will sing for us. And they will dance for us. And we will hold hands after brushing the sandwich crumbs away before we walk down the trail back to our car.

"Got a call from my dentist," announced Xavier, looking down at his untouched omelet with the emotional expression of a lover who had been wronged. "And?" "It ain't good." He exhaled through his nose, a low whistling coming from the left nostril. "He told me it would either be a root canal or a complete removal of the tooth. Knowing my luck, I'll have dentures by the time I'm forty-two."

by Belinda Roddie Yet again she noticed the creature had escaped, a trail of destruction pointing her in the direction he ran off to. Pots and pans had been yanked from opened drawers and scattered in a metallic mess on the floor. Both sugar and cinnamon had been spilled from now cracked porcelain jars and now lay in scattered white and brown smudges on the linoleum. A box of crackers had been opened, its contents partially eaten, the crumbs spread out in a circle as if meant to summon some sort of demon. Nexis wondered to herself why she even tried to keep the strange beast with her. She had given him a spacious golden cage, with a high enough ceiling to stand in and all the proper furniture. She had fed it three times a day - meat and cheese and ale, with some dessert if it didn't cause trouble - and even sometimes sang it to sleep. And now it had fled for the fifth time, the padlock undone from its prison, disappearing into the forest beyond the cottage. Nexis fetched the b...

Those who were prosecuted and consequently imprisoned by the government didn't expect to see sunlight ever again. Nor did they anticipate feeling the cool air or spray of the sea from their tiny, cramped cells. It wasn't until I freed them - the bars bursting forward like broken ribs, the walls caving in like a monster's rotting stomach - that they actually realized there was hope for them to live again. I led them out into the open air. I led them to freedom.