My Cardboard Balcony

Whew. Another busy week. Don't get me wrong, it's very fulfilling for me, teaching and all that. But my goodness, does it require a lot of work. Also, in other news, my goodness, water is wet. Still doing my best to write. I've been editing some older projects of mine, such as my second novel, and seeing where it goes. I'm hoping also to participate in NaNoWriMo in the next couple of months. ...Yep. It's September, all right. Take it easy on me, dear passage of time. Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

The Family Heirloom by Belinda Roddie Your heart sat, still beating, in a tarnished brass box.

"Is that a meme?" I stared. "What?" "That." My mom was jabbing toward the screen with both her index and middle finger, pinched together as if she were attempting to stab the air with her nails. "That weird picture. Is that a meme?" I sighed and got up from the couch so I could get a better look. On the computer, sure enough, was an image of an octopus with cat heads attached to its tentacles. "I wouldn't call that a meme," I said. "Just probably some really bored person who decided to mess with Photoshop."

You Are So Light by Belinda Roddie You are so light and easy to carry as I haul you up seven flights of stairs. It's as if you're two armfuls' worth of breeze, or brittle sunlight caught between the hairs on my head. I know you've fallen asleep against my chest, your nose whistling, your breath coming out in short, harsh bursts, and I keep time of your pulse so that you don't risk death as you bounce against me. I lay you down on the couch. Suddenly, your fingers latch onto my shirt. I feel my own heart pound as you look up, awake, but still detached from the world around you. You are so light, but your grip's so heavy to me tonight.

How many times did I step outside, I wondered, into that harsh, cold air, the coils of frost like chainmail across my caved in torso, and see that same wolf leering at me from behind the dying redwood tree? She did not come close to me - no, she did not see me as prey or enemy. But she always looked at me. Each morning, as I went out to collect wood or go to the shed, she was there, yellow eyes blazing even against sheets of falling snow, her jaw set as if she were chewing something she could not fully break down.

Caught In The '90s by Belinda Roddie Here we are holding hands at the baseball game wasting quarters on the old arcade sharing secrets over Gatorade like all dumb teenagers do Here we talk about war and stupid politics about the TV shows we like to skip and all the boy bands that make us sick to our stomachs at eleven at night And here we drive where the dirt road grows too thin and the lake's so cold that you just can't swim in it, but I'll hold you just along its rim and sing you tunes from the radio And I kiss you once just to make you smile and I'll say goodbye at the bus stop. I'll be seeing you in a second life where it's totally legal for you to be my wife

"Don't make me cry," whimpered Stephanie. "I hate crying. I don't want to cry." "I'm not going to make you cry," I said, my tone admittedly a bit bewildered. "Why would I do that?" "Because everyone else makes me cry," she said, and already, her eyes were beginning to shine. "My brother, my mommy, my daddy. They all make me cry. They all like making me cry."