My Cardboard Balcony

A Response To Having Both My Words And Intentions Completely And Utterly Warped by Belinda Roddie I'm not sure why, when our conversation's over, every word that I've crafted so carefully like hot metal gets returned to me all scrunched up like aluminum foil, unrecognizable. I try to uncurl the syllables, but they're beyond mending, and I can't remold them with my teeth because chewing on aluminum foil is a bad idea. I don't get it. You have this weird image of me. Distorted like a painting from a horny Picasso, his eyes glazed over at the thought of sticking his callused, oil-stained fingers where they don't belong. The sentences I speak are skewed as soon as they are propped up on stools. They're slanted, struggling to remember what they actually mean. I have to admit, if you've branded me as the Devil, then you've given my sloppy cunning way more credit than it actually deserves.

3:35 PM. I board the metro at Larson Station. Sit myself between two dilapidated benches because then that way, no one can turn me into a people sandwich. I find my last working earbuds and pop them in, and soon, it’s symphonic metal for the next seven stops. I’m on this train for a long time. Being a commuter blows.

Heat by Belinda Roddie The warmth is something I've missed: you hold me to your bosom, nuzzle the bare skin on my neck. The rain makes confetti outside, and the chill celebrates its longer stay. I'd like to rest here with you, under these sheets, for as long as possible. Pretend that time has pulled over for a pit stop, slowed down enough for gossip at the water cooler. I place my fingers on your cheek, and the divots and dimples are second homes to them. This temperature, I realize, is temporary, and once I strip the layers away, all the energy we've converted will escape and hide in the corners and in the cracked mouths of the walls. See, the thing is, I know and adore how gay this is: Our curves are symmetrical. They connect like the softer edges of a jigsaw puzzle, or like clay mixed into a big rainbow ball. I'm still digesting how much you cherish even the parts of me that you don't like. Because at leas...

We ate everything in sight, drank until our chalices were dry. We practically licked our plates clean before Madam Zucker took them away for washing. When dinner was finished, we sat in the living room, knitted, and recited our prayers. Then, one by one, we went off to bed. Still, while I slept soundly, I learned the next morning that my sister had had uncomfortable dreams.

Lying To My Boss by Belinda Roddie It seems like a fever dream now: The unprovoked, self-contained mythology erupting from your tongue, the unprompted diatribe proclaiming your pseudo-preparation for the unexpected observation. Your knees shook, sweaty lips loose like the flaps of a manila envelope, fluttering as you crafted your shoddy self-defense against a non-existent assailant. You offered stale bread crumbs to someone who wasn't even hungry, and now you're paying the price for it like a cerebral hemorrhage. You weren't even good at lying. He knew you were full of shit almost immediately. He did amateur detective work, ran his investigation in the computer lab, and the seating chart you claimed to have created evaporated like water in a heat wave. Of course it turned into gas if it was never written on paper in the first place, or etched into a poor desktop's chest. Then he called you out for it: Wrote it in your evaluation, added the w...

Endure a plane ride from your hometown airport to the Big City and find me on the island with the single tower in the middle of Hope Bay. You'll have to take a ferry there, or you can kayak, though given the weather and the currents, I wouldn't recommend it. Once you reach me, we'll sit cross-legged together until all the lights go out in the buildings in front of me, and we can pretend that it's night forever.