My Cardboard Balcony

I Wasn't Hungry by Belinda Roddie I wasn't hungry when I finished work and couldn't eat the meal my mother made so lovingly. I felt like such a jerk, but none of the food ever left my plate, and I excused myself to be alone, my stomach aching, throbbing like a drum with its skin pulled too tightly 'round the bone that held it all together. I knew some members of my family would worry about me, but my appetite was shot and had been for the past week. I could see how tired and weak I looked, yet if I thought too much about eating, the hunger I was wishing for would shrivel up and die.

"Lawrence!" shouted Lester. "Lawrence! We've had a breakthrough!" The fingers on the left hand of the subject - crooked and stiff - had twitched somewhat after the body had been placed on the bed. Lawrence stared. He had never detected motor responses in the specimen until now. He pushed his golden spectacles up the bridge of his long nose and wiped a rivulet of sweat threatening to escape from his forehead.

Bring It To A Boil by Belinda Roddie we drank homemade root beer made from the sassafras that your mama grows in Iowa before the summer scorches the bones that make up the ground your mama's recipe that came from her papa when he still cut up roots and wrapped them in paper towels like swaddling a newborn bundle of babies we drank it together molasses and spices molasses and kisses on ceramic mugs we drank it together molasses and spices something tells me your mama wouldn't take kindly to me sitting on your porch, leaving lip tattoos on your neck and chin something tells me your mama would smell the cinnamon on me the soda water and anise on me diluted but rich enough to catch in one nostril or the other all the kisses caught in between mouthfuls she doesn't need to know and the neighbors don't care we'll drink it together molasses and spices sassafras growing in an Iowan heat wave we'll drink it together molasses and ...

Alan wouldn't stay at the Grand Pearl Hotel because he was absolutely certain that there were ghosts haunting it. Specifically, he thought they'd haunt any room he frequented. "They like odd room numbers," he told me over beer, "and I always get rooms with an odd number. I'm not risking staying in Room 217 or Room 425 and getting attacked by hungry ghosts." I stared. "I'm pretty sure ghosts don't eat people." "Then what do they eat, Lorraine? Tacos?!"

Somewhere Cold by Belinda Roddie somewhere cold somewhere nondescript there's a depot where ghosts sing into champagne bottles and the shelves are stacked with enough doughnuts to feed the entire county and give them diabetes simultaneously what a world what a world what a world

How many starfish can you find? One, two, three, four. They're all washed up in the brine. Sand, salt, wind, shore. They are perfect, and we'll dine. Munch, chew, crunch, mmm. Pair them up with kelp-filled wine. Gulp, gulp, gulp, hmmm.

Sequence by Belinda Roddie black and white photographs juxtaposed with color a neon swathe of color revealing the guts of women who danced better than they fought and sang louder than they screamed you hang each frame by the edge of your bed your pictures like marionettes without guidance or direction memories seldom receive either they've already chosen their paths and can't be forced backward by Time's unsteady hands she can't keep her fingers still like frightened rabbits they skitter into the darkness of her sleeves I hope you find me at your drinking hole where we can dance and snap polaroids that render us white noise temporarily before we assume our old shapes once more if you take me to bed just remember that you don't have to tell your stories to me again I've heard them before they're lodged in my belly creating heat creating color among the black and white