My Cardboard Balcony

We were called rascals. Thieves. Crooks, liars, and hoodlums. Brats with no future and monsters with a past. We were none of those things. We were fighters, first and foremost. After that, we were poets. We craved art like a puma craves raw red meat, and we would not let anyone silence us. So, yes, we did cause a ruckus, and we did take a few things that they claimed didn't belong to us. But they did. And we kept them.

by Belinda Roddie "See, I told you marshmallows made efficient bullets!" cried Tobias, drawing his Nerf gun from his hip and lobbing some of the sugary cylinders at my head. I swatted them away with a spare hand and went back to my book. If Toby wasn't careful, then the ants truly would come marching in. Mom didn't like sweet stuff in the house, and Tobias and my younger sister, Kerry, were always finding ways to sneak it in under her nose. How they had managed to hide an entire bag of sugar-based gelatin was beyond me. Kerry had a plastic orange and white bazooka, and she pelted Tobias with marshmallows like they were fluffy bullets hailing from a World War I soldier's machine gun. They laughed and hollered, and once they ran out of ammo, they picked up the offending food from the carpet and gobbled it down without any fear of digesting lint or feeling a psychosomatic high. They were already excitable enough as it was, and they turned to video games jus...

No update on the OneWord site today. But hey, I was one of the millions of people who marched today for freedom, liberty, and equality in America. That's worth something.

Today, I went to work. I taught classes for three different students. I discussed everything from time travel to the food industry to the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. I got Chipotle for lunch. I took my car in for a service and learned that my tires are almost entirely worn down and need to be replaced. I walked in the rain with my mom and her dog, and we met with my dad and two of my parents' friends for wine. My brother drove me home since it was too risky to drive my car, and I changed into my suit and my new vest that I got from Historical Emporium (seriously,  check them out . You won't regret it) while my wife put on some make-up and a lovely dress. Why? Because we wanted to dress up for a wonderful dinner at a French restaurant in the next town over. There was steak tartare, butternut squash soup, salad, and steak frites with Roquefort butter. There was red wine and the latest rounds from the Australian open playing on the nearby TV. There was good conver...

Turn Off The Noise by Belinda Roddie All bluster eventually leads to bellowing. Then screaming. Then static.

Here we have the madman, standing at the podium. He screams threats and obscenities, and the meager audience cheers. They wear red hats and stamp their feet and gesture to the wind, taunting the spirits and daring them to change the course of time, to change the course of history, which never, ever ends. The madman is strutting. He's grinning at his prize. In perhaps a year, the world will change - the colors will all dim.

I Cling To Hope by Belinda Roddie I cling to hope - an intangible thing, fragile, invisible, and fraying, too, like a sweater slowly unraveling and leaving threads behind in reds and blues. I cling to hope 'cause there's no Superman to save the day. Captain America isn't here, either, and Wonder Woman thinks her lasso of truth's a replica of what it used to be, because it just doesn't work anymore. The game is played with lies now, and corruption, red like rust across the sky. Bigotry's now been paved into each street. No love? We are bereft. I cling to hope 'cause it's all I have left.