My Cardboard Balcony

Wow. It has been a really crazy time back at work. The thing is, I hardly know where to start with this. The first two weeks back at school were more than just hectic. They took more out of me than I wanted them to take. Dealing with mean girl drama, almost missing a deadline, having English students get very snide with me based on work I ask them to and projects I assign them and things they thought I said that I didn't. Working at a high school is no cake walk. My income ought to be doubled. Yearbook did officially make it to the halfway mark, though. 152 out of 304 pages. Three more deadlines to go. And they're coming up fast. Less than two months left to crank this out. Colleagues have jumped in to help. Meanwhile, I've been trying to gain my bearings. I'm learning just how much more I have to do and improve upon to be a successful teacher for every student. I'm trying to manage my emotions as best as I can. I'm writing more spoken word poetry than eve...

Concave Eyes by Belinda Roddie The reflection in my spoon is prettier than my face.

There weren't exactly any lessons to learn from this - at least, not any I could particularly fathom. In the end, I was bruised, battered, emaciated, and exhausted. My friends were equally as scraped up and starved. We stood in front of our mentor, who smiled as if the great challenge had turned us into far better adults than we could have imagined. But we were all still sixteen, and we were all still confused as to why it seemed that every bone in our body hurt.

To Those Of You by Belinda Roddie To those of you who balance on your fences and keep your toes en pointe until they bleed against the iron: Cast aside pretenses and let your smiles be ghoulish as a breed of hyenas all grinning at their prey. You're eager to jump off your makeshift perch and shake the pain of blisters off your gray and bruising skin. Bring carrion to church, but hunt after the priest has sent you home. You'll teeter-totter, sure, while in public, to appear open-minded as you roam through urban streets. But talons do the trick, and gnashing teeth tear souls from present tenses, while you chew loudly from your crooked fences.

I had jumper cables in the trunk of my car, but I also had two packs of beer, a bottle of wine, and three massive jugs of whiskey glowing amber and brown in the thin night lighting around me. The guy who needed his battery jolted stared curiously as I took the cables in one hand and a beer in the other. "Gonna share?" he asked.

Memory & Me by Belinda Roddie I have captured moments in amber. Not just the happy or sentimental ones; also the ones with teeth marks on them, with bruises and scrapes. I don't always remember if I've locked the door of my classroom, and I have to trudge my way back across campus just so I can feel the cold, stiff beak of the door knob refuse to squawk. But I remember the time I somersaulted over the handlebars of my bicycle when I was thirteen, tattooing both my hands with canvassed scars. I remember the first time I felt dirty water splash against my knees on the river rafting ride at Great America - I think I was eight years old, or maybe I was nine. I remember when I was definitely eight years old, and I accidentally drank an entire cup of bright purple fluoride at the dentist's office, and I had to keep the rising bile down so I didn't projectile vomit in my mother's neon green Dodge minivan. The first memory I have is of me at age...

Please don't touch me there, sir. I'm very sensitive to physical contact. I feel every goosebump erupt from my skin like new volcanoes from a dry, epidermal ocean. I smell all the oils and grease on your body, and when you put your lips close to mine, the breath that emerges from between your teeth is like the gust of wind from a noxious storm, and I have to shield my face.