My Cardboard Balcony

Balancing The Scale by Belinda Roddie Distrusting my body, I fed it hot mint tea and cold shrimp, added popcorn like I was being entertained, then washed it down with water and guilt. I imagined everything I ate that day descending like stones into my stomach, churning and spinning like the meals had been stuffed into a blender, as if the puree setting made the weight in my gut lighter. I do this a lot, actually - projecting that mental image, that movie set to music with heavy bass. The symptoms I've been taught to call excess and gluttony settle into a dark cavity, are picked up by a hurricane, and then disintegrate. I pretend that I am now empty. Not brimming with the light and sustenance that calories are meant to provide. I call myself a foodie, but I wish that also meant I could look good while still being one. When I describe my shape and size, I joke that I'm, "built like a brick" - squished into a compactor and spat out like a p...

The Worst Thing by Belinda Roddie The worst things I've ever done: A numbered list. The kind you tuck away into the confines of a Google Doc. Everyone has to write a good list poem, and not surprisingly, mine happens to be adequately self-deprecating. So let's begin: 1. Forgot to complete my math homework. 2. Broke the yolk in three eggs meant for my wife's breakfast. 3. Missed multiple chances to keep my tongue from waging temper tantrums. Same with my fingers; I can't help getting involved in a good old-fashioned duel on social media. 4. Ran away from home, though I didn't get very far. I just wound up in the park with a pack of cigarettes, and I smoked two of them before throwing the rest of their lovers away. 5. Tore the side view mirror off my car when I was sixteen. 6. Caused a four-car accident when I was twenty-one. The man three cars ahead of me had decided that he wanted to take the road less traveled ...

Watch me, son: I'll show you how it's done. Retrieve the book, scan it in the machine. Then you get to take it home, but only for a few weeks, and then you have to bring it back. So read it quickly, my boy - but savor it. Enjoy the adventure on the pages. Once you're done, we can return it for another tome. See, this is one of the last havens we have in this small, humble town - a chance to be surrounded by books without needing to pay an arm and a leg for them.

Yep, I admit it: No short story tonight. And that's because I am outlining and beginning to write my tenth play! It's another sci-fi play, though it's not inspired by or adapted from any of my previous work (unlike my play,  It Is Fragile,  or my feature film,  The Potter and the Summoner).  I don't have a title yet, though I would love to start it with a J, as all of my plays have been written in alphabetical order by title. The first scene is finished, and I'm hoping to add more soon. I'm trying not to oversaturate my life with too many projects, whether they're my own or a collaboration with others. But hey, this is my passion, and I'm happy to indulge and work on my own pace for a lot of my work. So I'll let y'all know how it goes! And if you want to hear what my play's about, let me know: maybe you can even help me come up with a title starting with the letter J. Night, all!

We looked at everything when it came to the championship brackets. We checked the rosters. We checked the stats. We checked both individual performance and team effort. And in the end, we had an idea of who would most likely head to the finals. "I'm just saying," I told my buddies over a tankard of ale at Mox's Tavern, "when you have experience as a dragon slayer, you're gonna do well in the beast bouts. Especially when you're a damn good swordsman."