My Cardboard Balcony

Kin by Belinda Roddie I never got a younger sister, but if I did, she'd have your eyes. She'd wear her hair as short and bright as a blade. Her leather jackets would be off the chain. I never got a younger sister - two girls born just eight minutes apart were more than enough for my parents' arms. They cradled the sleeping bundles with the gentleness of angels. We were tucked away like seeds in cushioned pots, with pillows to support our growing stems, while we waited to sprout into loud and obnoxiously dramatic flowers of poetic justice! But if I had gotten a younger sister, she'd have your smile, as wicked and mischievous as a sorceress with her nose inches away from the scalding mouth of a cauldron. She'd be the one to fight off the bullies from our siblings and me, not the other way around. She'd cast spells with just her words, and if the jinxes didn't work, she'd use her fists instead. She'd leave holes in steel witho...

I wasn't used to this feeling. I wasn't used to how much it stung, how much it cramped, how much it burned and throbbed and ached. It was as if I had been stabbed, scraped, electrocuted, shot, all at the same time - all while dealing with the fatigue of a marathon. If this was heartache, I wanted no part of it. If this was heartache, then I wanted to cut out my own heart with a dirty knife and peddle it to some other sap who wanted it more.

Regimen by Belinda Roddie How many times have I gone to the gym, slammed my worn out sneakers onto an elliptical trainer, spun my knees up and down like I'm a meat machine, focusing my eyes on my own reflection in the window, waiting for the thirty minutes to end, waiting halfway for the adrenaline to kick in, waiting until the heat has painted my face red and white like a porcelain doll going mad for rouge and blush? How many times have I strained the inside of my thighs from a leg press, bent steel in my own limbs so I could see the divots in my calves, made it difficult to breathe because the cramp in my abdomen is like the bar of a roller coaster seat pinned down too hard against my diaphragm? How many times have I let the angsty rock music I listened to when I was younger drive my resolve to at least not get any bigger than the two hundred pounds I carry with me on a daily basis, even though no one correctly guesses the number that builds the anatomy ...

Okay, seriously, OneWord website. I miss your being consistent. I miss the daily prompts. Please come baaaaaaaack.

I Still Love You by Belinda Roddie The turmoil comes in snaps and bursts, almost as if the winter chill is preparing to make the pipes in your brain explode, the inner cerebral plumbing threatening to spill everything - truths, lies, choices, reluctances. You never wanted her to know your doubts, but she knows them. She sees how simply you've tattooed them as a sleeve on your pulsing flesh. Sees the ripples producing sounds along your body. It's white noise, the kind that sets your teeth on a war zone border rather than easing the lactic tension in your muscles. It makes each separate hair stand erect and report for duty on the military assembly line, and you will report for duty, sir, even if it kills you by sundown. You want to stitch your lips closed with silver, even while you dwell in a laboratory world where everything is open-ended - everything is revealed on a steel table with just a little bit of dissection, the blade of the silicon scalpel hot...

I didn't know where I was. I didn't know how I got there. I didn't know where I was going or who I was going to meet or even when this was all going to end. But I could say with absolute certainty what my name was. That was one thing I had. And I wouldn't say it out loud in case that was stolen from me, too. I had had enough swiped from my hands over the past few days to make me cautious of every interaction I partook in.

I think you know why by this point, people.