My Cardboard Balcony

I've just finished a yearbook deadline. I'm in the middle of my annual performance poetry unit with my English classes. I've let the appropriate people know about my decision that I only hinted at in last week's introspection. No, you're not getting any more details for me. I had to be reminded of something today, and it really jarred me. I talked about it with my wife on BART, as we were able to see a great play in the city (it's called, The Do's and Don't's and Time Travel, and if you're a bay area local, freaking see it, it's going until the 26th, here's a link ). And when I told her about my experience, after so many days of stress and anxiety and anger from the people around me, I really began to realize how much I was losing my passion for something that is, in truth, super important to me. But I want to write my thoughts down in a way that's appropriate to my life right now. Yep - time for some cheesy spoken word. Enjoy. ...

Don't Ask Me The Rules by Belinda Roddie My favorite new game is bowling with my enemies' skulls!

Everyone likes to say that I don't have the courage to confront my problems. I ignore them, they claim with a pointed finger and a standard accusatory tone; I just pretend they're not there, sweep everything under the rug. Well, why the rug, out of curiosity? I mean, my floors are all hardwood, and the carpeting upstairs can't have anything swept under it. How about I keep my problems in an old empty vodka bottle instead, like preserving dying insects, and I enjoy watching their exoskeletons slowly decay in the sunlight from my kitchen's bay window?

We Played Croquet by Belinda Roddie We played croquet after a tea or two, our shoes skidding on the manicured lawn, the crack of mallets against orbs both blue and red breaking the silence of the dawn. We did this every sunrise, and once we had woken up the neighbors, we retired back to our bed to warm our chilled bodies under a handmade quilt. You had been hired as a receptionist, and I, poor fool continued my vain efforts to inspire the adolescents I taught at the school. "Kiss me," I said, and yet, I was too tired to kiss back. The remainder of the day was gone to me after playing croquet.

"Hey, man. I got the pizza." I look up from my newspaper. "Wow," I intone. "That was quick. Slow day at the Big Pepperoni?" "Nah," replies Marcia with a grin. "I went to Slice Of Life instead. Their pizza's cheaper, but also way better. Dig in!" Skeptical, I stand up and retrieve some cheese goodness from the box. Already, the dairy actually looks real; good start.

Ooh La La by Belinda Roddie Once, I laid eyes on a girl so beautiful, she stopped my breath, crammed it into a jar as it stayed suspended in mid-air, a perfect freeze frame for the cinema. Ideal for our tête-à-tête, our rendezvous, our secret ballet that we danced with pirouettes and plies - don't watch us, sil vous plait. Have you ever noticed that when you talk about love, you dunk your entire head in a basin full of French? All the beautiful whims and fancies of a Romance language that can't count from seventy to one hundred properly. The words make your head spin because you think the meaning of your message is stronger when you have vertigo. You don't consider the fact that you're just dizzy. Swooning over her as you sip your aperitif and adjust your chic beret and you imagine yourself in a film noir, and the femme fatale struts toward you, all haute couture and pretending to be an ingénue. She smokes, because of course she does - ...