My Cardboard Balcony

Maybe Not by Belinda Roddie maybe we are as fragile as the stardust found in fireworks, the fuse merely there to focus our emotions around a tight spiral before they all erupt into temporary flames. maybe forever is just a word found in books and letters riddled with sentimental values, like bullet holes missing their target but still leaving marks that take a fairly long time to heal. maybe we're just strangers who happen to know each other's secrets without the basic human connection needed to boil a kettle with just our body heat, our sweaty noses, our cheeks tinged with the colors of something extraordinary that you can't just find in a box of crayons. maybe it's just simpler than we thought. we are born from wheat stalks and turned to loaves of bread nestled side by side in the grocery aisle. we share a likeness and a common desire for noise. maybe we ought to be quiet for a while. maybe we ought to try to be more acquainted. maybe w...

It was the kind of movie that had been intentionally stylized to be over the top - an 80's kid's wet dream as everything from leggings to bad hair to Belinda Carlisle to NES console games popped up onscreen. The story itself was straightforward, reminding its viewers of the many tales of teenage love and friendship as seen in the already established classics. The director, of course, was proud of his work, and the screenwriter was, too - after all, they were both tormented by the daggers of nostalgia.

Achievement Unlocked by Belinda Roddie finishing a crossword in under four minutes the words just get caught in your nose after a while like fine dust or steam from a frying pan moist, clinging to the fibers that make up both you and I, your strings and my strings you catch the last sentence of the penultimate episode of a television show that tries to warn you, plead with you, to turn and walk the other way, to extract the silicon out of your left ear so you can hear music again instead of tech-approved tinnitus leading you to warbling dreams on warming nights I hate to tell you this, but your brain isn't getting any stronger, and you're not getting any stabler, either the folds keep pushing downward like a wrinkling bedsheet, tangled up in the spindly legs of your neurons all tied into knots behind your tired eyes don't mistake quick success for eternal wisdom you have to look up hints to your puzzles, anyway

No update on the OneWord website today. Oh, well!

They told her that she didn't deserve to stay on welfare, and they told me that I ought to take her in and make an honest woman out of her. After all, I had both the money and the connections - may as well as put her through some sort of "rehabilitation," right? But the truth was, she didn't need me, and I didn't need her. She could manage just fine with the scraps of government aid she received, and in the meantime, she was too proud - too headstrong, justifiably so - to ask for any sort of alms from a more financially successful person.

by Belinda Roddie It began first with darkness; then came the screams. They tore open the air like the skin's thin, fragile seams. The spirits started dancing, and the ghouls enjoyed their prancing. And all of them convened to infiltrate the children's dreams. The children first would whimper; then finally, they would howl. They'd try to tear themselves away from nightmares' shrouding cowl. But it held firm across their eyes, imbibing them with ghosts and lies. Their sheets would tightly draw about their gaping maws. The children dreamed that they were within a never ending pit. They'd dream of drinking potions mixed with werewolves' grime and spit. They'd cry out for their mothers, their sisters and their brothers. But they were all asleep, locked in Morpheus's keep. The darkness was unyielding; the darkness held its grip. It kissed October's weeping brow and then straight on its lips. It made itself at home where the undead always roamed. I...

Almost made it a week! And yet, no update on the OneWord website today. Oh, well!