My Cardboard Balcony

León by Belinda Roddie The fountain leaks when it's summer time, and it dries up even once the blizzards sleep within the folds of yesterday. I am not waiting for a miracle to happen, but I wish I could drink from the silver spigots again, become thirteen years younger, and meet you by the archway in the middle of the town square. You will be white-haired, but I will have golden curls. And we will marry under closed rosebuds in the spring.

You order a hamburger at the Eat 'n Flee Diner to the west of campus, and you sit down to find that it's bloody rare instead of medium well done. How much will it cost? Nothing, hopefully. You return the meal to the waitress, only to see her eyes spin to the back of her head. "I am the cow goddess," she moans. "I reject your rejected gift."

Mea Culpa by Belinda Roddie I'll make it up to you with peanut butter candy with six packs and a crinkled bag of salt and pepper misery I'll make it up to you with words with half a meaning with orange peels and in betweens when we both have time to breathe If it's any comfort I never said I was perfect Not once did I claim purity when my cuticles are ashen I'm not attempting to persuade you that I have ever been cleansed I've sewn a name across my chest to remember my original sin If people start to wonder why you still put up with me I'll make it up to you with salt and pepper misery

The majority doesn't want this kind of government, or this kind of economic treatment, or these kinds of representatives. Why, then, do they refuse to vote? Why, then, do they find their voices muted, or their priorities shifted, or their opinions irrelevant? Look around you - hundreds of thousands of voters disenfranchised. Suppressed, unregistered, removed from polling places. They will take your rights away if you do not use them. October 22nd in California. Register to vote.

by Belinda Roddie Please do not let in the cat. He's mangy and he smells funny. He attacked our basset hound the other day, and I swear he wants to place a curse on my son with his stare. He's lived for longer than I have, and he's missing one paw. It was replaced with a hook because his owner felt it appropriate. They always pretended to be pirates when I was a child, and they truly went whole hog. Like, stealing my lunch money and trying to take over neighbor's boats in the driveway full hog. Come to think of it, I don't think the cat is a cat at all. I think he's an overgrown, shaggy biped who lives in the cardboard hut just outside my neighbor Ted's condo. And I think he's hungry. Just don't be fooled. And don't let him in. This week's prompt was provided by a picture I found on Facebook. That's...that's about it, really. Nothing else to say.