My Cardboard Balcony

Sensitive Scalp by Belinda Roddie The slightly stabbing pains - the short, sharp sensations, like Floyd's "short, sharp shocks" along the pristine glass of a prism - it's enough to change my dreams at night. They grow edges, become jagged in the middle of the stars' shipwreck voyage. You run your fingers through my hair, and the pain intensifies - it gets plugged into an amp in a small concert space, and suddenly, it echoes dissonant chords that not even my trained ear can discern. I think, most likely, the one responsible is my permanent puberty - because, after all, they lied when they said acne ended after adolescence - and now I'm left with new strategies on how to rest my head on the pillow without being zapped by Freud's finger, coated with static electricity.

Discourse In An Inferno by Belinda Roddie This civil conversation has only been upended by the multiple stab wounds and bullet holes in the holy temples The mosques and the synagogues pray for more than just more prayers, but you wholeheartedly believe that the worshippers will surely thank you for trying to "see both sides"

Frank is the only passenger on the bus. Frank never bought a ticket. He snuck on when the bus was full and the bus driver was on her smoke break (she forgot to shut the doors). Now he sits with his hands folded haphazardly in his lap. They are like fraying parachutes unable to carry him to safety. The bus driver drives slowly. Her eyes are rimmed with gray shadows. Frank can see the hue from the rearview mirror.

Reinstallation by Belinda Roddie Sometimes, I feel like deprogramming is the only way I can be debugged, but I'm also aware that pulling the plug doesn't guarantee that, should by a miracle I am restarted, the celestial parts of me I tolerate won't wind up corrupted, like files gathered in a row on an open sea of data, trickling green into the brine.

It was just a flip, tuck, and a tumble to get Mick on the other side of the hill, clutching their shotgun to their chest. As they settled into the grass, they could feel the pollen already begin to settle on their body, dusting their thin hair and settling onto their nostrils. They willed themselves not to sneeze - the Summertime Zombie Dream Team would hear them. So Mick gritted their teeth and went to chamber a round.