My Cardboard Balcony

The yearbook is done. Officially done. Prom was taken care of. The photos were uploaded. The copy was finished. The captions were accurate. The pages got submitted. It is done. Now we wait a few more weeks until they deliver the books - and then the fun begins. Still screwing up in some ways, though. I was told not to do applications for my Yearbook students - which is fair, as I can't exactly pick and choose. I also waited way too long to put in a field trip form for the summer camp, so I may have messed that up. I know I'm still a new yearbook adviser, but come on. I can only forgive myself for foolish mistakes so much! Anyway, it's been a long week. Besides finishing the yearbook, I've also been really pushing my English students to write an argumentative paper. It's been an uphill climb, and I'm still hiking up the slope. To think, I'm willing to do this all again next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. And the ye...

Bruised Wings by Belinda Roddie How many times should I fall before I finally fly?

Watch My Life by Belinda Roddie Watch my life turn into threads on the seams of a worn down jacket of black and white. We're high on honeysticks and broken dreams as we blend bodies into inky night. Our hearts are literally in our hands as we traverse the boundaries between life and death, love and hate. Our false commands to a befuddled god that didn't mean to exist in the first place just makes fools out of us all. Our words are simply strings that dangle from the stars; the swimming pools we dip our toes into are idle things. We find reflections that simply don't match the life from which I plan to self-detach.

The cat that liked to sneak into our house wasn't a stray. She was well-fed and well-groomed, and she lived with another tabby in a condo across the street from us. Still, she found our living room to be to her liking - sniffing around the couch, nuzzling her head against the coffee table. It was only when she tried to run upstairs did my wife acquiesce and carry the feisty feline back outside.

Man Overboard by Belinda Roddie Soon enough they'll dredge my body out of the salty harbor scrubbing my bone clean of the stinging debris stripping the fibers of the sea from my teeth My eyes scream for second sight If they're not careful I'll sink again into the muddy waves and the currents will carry my shadow from the canal to the docks, and I will paint my silhouette across every white sail of ships squatting in their communal circle discussing the schedule for next week over bread crumbs and seagulls' shrieks The noise will be pronounced enough to revive me from my listless stupor I promise that if you give me a trident I will become a brand new underwater god rather than the sad husk of seaweed-stained humanity strewn across the driftwood-clogged shore, where children dig their claws into the sand to find food, and dogs sniff at my thinning hair with no desire to howl for help