My Cardboard Balcony

I'm Overworked by Belinda Roddie I'm overworked and underpaid; I think I can't take much more of this roughshod life. I'm trying hard to sleep and not to drink, and to pay more attention to my wife. I want to find fulfillment in my craft, but my true passion never seems too near. When I think about goals, I have to laugh; what I love couldn't be a real career. I'm worried that I'll falter on the path that I have chosen, and that I'll succumb to melancholy and fatigue. The fact is, though I love my job, I still feel numb at times. It's when my fingers dance and fly across the keyboard that I feel alive.

Yep. Happened again. No prompt - no new OneWord. Oh, well!

God's Special Recipe by Belinda Roddie you are beholden to sweet, sweet religion, the confectionary precision lingering like sweating sugar in your mouth your distemper is assuaged by the thickness of the Scripture, savored in one serving on a spoon once you taste it, your sinuses radiate the heat of one Lonely, Holy Word

The china was broken, the silverware dented in sad, twisted lumps on the counter. I counted the fragments of plates and realized, to my shock, that not a single one of my dishes lay unscathed. As I circled around the room, avoiding shards on the floor, I wondered just why, exactly, someone who could very well have stolen my things had decided, upon infiltrating my home, to destroy them instead.

Beautiful Christina by Belinda Roddie Beautiful Christina had a natural look that took all the boys by surprise. She beamed and she glowed, but nobody would know that she just wasn't interested in guys. She kept all her pretty little secrets in a book and wrote truths while she lived all the lies. She was always captivated by the worlds she created in each beautiful young woman's eyes. The ladies she adored had hair yellow as corn and sweet smiles just as bright as the moon. They drank whiskey in steins, and they danced all in lines, and they made all the gentlemen swoon. And Beautiful Christina was left so forlorn as her suitors all failed to attract her. She kept feelings within her so she wasn't a sinner, while the buzzards called lovers attacked her.

No update on the OneWord website today. I miss seeing consistent prompts. Oh, well!

After The Heat Wave by Belinda Roddie After the heat wave, the fires still grew in rugged swaths, like a wild red beard across a dry jawline aching for water or sweet wine to moisten the palate. We sat where the air was coolest, sharing a single bottle of something strong, as the moon turned orange from the breath of a dragon untamed by the reins of the chariot. Nights like these reminded me of how I adored frost on windows, and of how, if I was lucky, the rain would create patterns for me to draw when the canvas lacked oil or color. But the discomfort of summer still draped his arm across the sky, and there was nothing but the smoke of an angry god's cigar while her scaly pet snored loudly in its sleep.