My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie This used to taste like acetone - what happened? The odors here aren't reminiscent of hand sanitizer anymore. Everything that once was sterilized now has a different flavor. I taste bitter and salty and sweet again. My mouth seems to have been cleansed. I sit on the edge of my bed, and the texture, somehow, is soft. For years, I learned to embrace the sensation of nails across my back. And the sun no longer blinds me - instead, it casts a warm glow across everything I set my gaze on. The walls, the ceiling, the wooden floor. I can see colors again. I can see colors. The doctors told me I was broken - dismantled, beyond repair. But apparently now I've been rebuilt. Now I've been reborn. I take two steps on the floor, and it no longer feels like Siberian winter. I have escaped the tundra, and I no longer suffer the stench of chlorine just by breathing in air. My bones don't feel like splinters beneath my skin anymore. I am reassembled. I am huma...

Dude. Dude. Dude. The yearbook is pretty much done. I say pretty much because we still need to cover prom. But prom isn't until the end of April. So as far as I'm concerned, the yearbook is pretty much done. I'm just waiting for final approval on remaining spreads before I submit them. It really, really hasn't sunk in yet that my first yearbook is almost completed. Still waiting, though. Anyway, I'm at my in-laws' place for a seder and Easter. ...Yeah. I'm going to enjoy my spring break. Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

Adhesive Love by Belinda Roddie Duct tape fixes everything - except, of course, a broken heart.

Somehow, I can see right through your scheme. I can spot the face beneath your mask. I can count every scar you've collected throughout the years across your thinning skin. They form spider webs rather than constellations - cracks of age rather than strings of stars. You hold yourself upright, but your eyes beneath the plaster water, and not from the heat. Not from the strain. Not from the fatigue that you have brought upon yourself.

The Misty Hills by Belinda Roddie The misty hills are green and gold today, the hands of spring caressing all their slopes, and despite the fact that the fog is gray, it fits as if green fire can emit smoke. The misty hills are where I long to go when I feel inadequate in my state - ennui has settled in, my writing slow as I wait for the clouds to dissipate. Now that it's warm, I find myself much more lethargic than I ever expected. The sun drains all my life down to my core, and mediocrity weighs on my head. Perhaps the misty hills will provide some cold hole in which I could then reside.