My Cardboard Balcony

This is what we call the Gravy Train. It takes us past the small towns and the barren plains. It rips through the metropoli and lands us where the spotlights shine halos in a God forsaken sky. The hotels serve champagne under the moon's gilded eye. You and I toast to good fortune. We won our tickets in a competition, and of our own volition, we dressed in sequins and, giggling all the way, boarded the sneering Gravy Train.

Just how many more elixirs are you going to pump down my throat before you claim that I've recovered my sanity? The formula tastes so bitter; it dries out my mouth and makes my teeth shake. I feel like I'm going to convulse so wildly that my soul will deliberately throw itself out of my body. And yet, you force me to stay in bed, claiming you're "flushing out the toxins," all while dousing my whimpering tongue with snake oil.

Activate by Belinda Roddie Look, how many times do I have to explain the level of apathy that's risen in your veins? Let the empire do as they may to you; you don't exactly care enough to preserve the right to choose. Or the right to speak. Or the right to give. Or the right to protest. Or the right to live.

Marshall wanted a new washer and dryer, but Emery insisted that they couldn't afford it. So they forked over quarter after quarter at the local laundromat, perpetually wasting money that they could have used up for newer and better machines. In the meantime, Chad got it in his head that perhaps hanging his wet clothes on a line would solve the problem. That was during the rainiest winter in a decade.

by Belinda Roddie I’m trying to perfect my shiv carving skills. No, Mom, not Shiva carving. Shiv carving. You know. Like the makeshift knifes that dudes use in prison. I'm thinking of taking that broken glass pane - you know, the one the neighborhood boys broke during their game of baseball - and turning it into a beautiful weapon. Just carve that shard into a blade and make it a nice wooden and fabric wrapped handle. No, Mom, you do not have to call the police on me. I just have strange hobbies, okay? I mean, think about it. Cavemen made their own daggers and knives from rocks. Rocks! Like flint and limestone and shit like that. They used the resources they had available. So why can't I take that crooked beam from the bunk bed we never use anymore and transform it into a beautiful mini javelin? There is no need to freak out, Mom. Hmmm, maybe once I get my glass dagger finished, I can make it a nice scabbard. Ooh! And for a dual knife, I can always fin...

Welp. It's official: I turned twenty-nine yesterday. I had a lovely day with the wifey - we got milkshakes downtown, she made me dinner, we watched Grace and Frankie, we ate storebought cupcakes. I got some nice gifts from both my wife and my in-laws, and I'm planning on seeing my parents and my brother on Sunday for more celebration. I obviously don't feel any different at twenty-nine than I did at twenty-eight, or twenty-seven. It's wonderful to think about how far I've come, though. I've been together with my wife for more than seven years, married for over a year and a half. I've completed my first year as a public high school teacher, as well as my first year of induction (out of two, in order to clear my credential). I've continued to create, add to, and revise writing projects. I've gone to the gym more and shed a lot of weight. I got my teeth cleaned for the first time in almost three years! I feel a lot lighter (literally and figuratively)...