My Cardboard Balcony

We Started A Band by Belinda Roddie We started a band where I played mandolin and you tickled the piano, drinking gin from a mason jar. As you slurped up your sin, we came up with tunes only half-written.

"How long have they been deliberating?" Costas sighed. He ran his fingers through his greasy, spiked hair, the sweat shining prominently from his pointed chin. "Two hours. Maybe longer. We knew this would be a tough case." I thought of my brother still sitting in that court room, not wanting to move, not wanting to say anything. His fate was in the hands of twelve people - a jury, allegedly, of his peers, but none of us had any confidence that they would reach an appropriate verdict.

Fell In Love With A Golem by Belinda Roddie She held her body at an angle so I could see her sharpest points. No curves, no bends, no bridges, just dead ends and cliffs and edges. Her tongue was rock against my teeth. Her mouth was cold clay in a bristling tundra. I was confused by the lack of heat. The lack of soul. Everything was jagged and threatened to scratch my body raw. She was so very, very rough.

I gripped the steering wheel in both hands, trying to ignore the trembling in my fingers, trying to ignore the hot throbbing in my ears and around my cheekbones. I wanted to keep the car steady, to stay within the dotted lines, to just keep driving. Just. Keep. Driving. It didn't matter who said what to me or who did what to me. It didn't matter how much they tried to break me. I wasn't in pieces yet. So I had to keep moving.

There was Jimmy and Tammy and Mindy and Sammy, and there I was, stuck in the middle. The oldest were athletes, while the youngest were mathletes, while I turned to guitar and fiddle. They all went off to college to earn shallow knowledge, but unlike my siblings, I stayed in the small little town where I finally found an identity that was solely self-made.

by Belinda Roddie "If I stare at my hands for too long, they look like cartoon hands." "...What?" "For real, dude. Like, they get all big and puffy, and if I squint real hard, my pinky melds with my ring finger." "..." "So like I have four fingers, man. Like Mickey Mouse or the Simpsons." "...Okay. I know you've had a couple of shots, John. But did you sneak in some LSD when I wasn't looking?" "Dude, how would I have snuck that past you?" "I dunno. You could've put it in your drinks. Used a blotter paper. Got it in gelatin or something." "Aaron." "What?" "For someone accusing me of taking acid, you sure sound like a expert at doing it yourself." "What? No. No, no, no. Don't you turn this around on me!" "Now, honey, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one." "Okay, one, don't call me ho...

"What was wrong with the way you did it?" I sighed and shrugged. "I still don't understand it," I replied. "Mister Schultz said something about the essay not having a 'proper topic' for the course content. Which is amusing to me." "What was the topic of your paper?" "Same-sex marriage." "And the class?" I grinned sardonically. "Human rights."