prologue

Lately my brother sleeps in the living room on a brown corduroy sofa that our mother inherited when Grandad passed on. It was the only thing he left her, the only thing she has of his. But it's more of my brother's now, I suppose. He started sleeping there about a month ago. "I can't stay there. I can't do it anymore," he'd say of his room, a small spare space tucked away in the corner of our house, no larger than one of those walk-in closets you'd see on the television. The mattress was pushed up against the wall, leaving only a couple feet for his legs to hang of the end. Stacks of clothes outlined the remaining border punctuated by a single window above his shoes.

i needed one more

cause that's the pattern of late. but this is made up. the others, well, they were real. i knew a kid named albert. i knew a girl named stella. actually, i didn't. or don't. i don't know anybody by those names. i did know a kid named nathaniel. he ate the stucko off the sides of houses. we made fun of him for it. he had one kidney. and one time his bladder exploded. this is true. nathaniel and the kidney. but i don't know what happened to him. and i can't write something honest without an intermediary. it's just not possible. if you filter it though it becomes less of yours and more of something else. and i don't want this to be mine. not really, at least.

albert navarro

albert navarro was a kid who lived on my street, back when i was more of a kid then a man. he liked birds and trains. his mother would always make him breakfast before class. he'd say, "did your mom make you breakfast?" and i'd say, "i don't have a mom, asshole." and he'd go on about his mother's breakfast and i'd just walk away. i found a notebook of his a few days after he died. i didn't know he kept one, but he did. i found this in it:


i love you, little hands, you keep my face safe
i love you, tiny feet, you send me quick to escape
i love you, skinny arms, you let me wrap the cold
i love you, clumsy legs, you give me control
i love you, and want to love you



i could never write like that. but he was that kind of kid, i guess.

stella bradford

stella bradford jacks you up. she jacks you up three times over and while you're reeling in confusion she jacks you up again. she's good at that. she jacks you up while you're walking down the street in your skinny jeans and moccasins and you don't know it but she's jacking you up something good. stella bradford will jack you up without even knowing she's jacking you up. that's her way. and, to her defense, it's not really her fault. she's unknowing. she's just her. she's just stella bradford. but she jacks you up in the morning. she jacks you up in class when you're trying to make something of yourself. and she jacks you up when you're trying to forget about her. but that's stella bradford. and you can't forget about her. cause she's always jacking you up. she jacks you up when you're with your friends, when you're drinking and smoking and talking about getting jacked up. she's doing it then. but can you blame her? cause maybe you should have learned by now. stella bradford. she just jacks you up.

cellafloriskidsamorean terrahaupt

burned bridges for seven ninety-five an hour and one and a half on holidays. says it's good money. no one wants that job. most people, he says, most people, they get too attached to them. cant carry out the job. but me, i just do it. get it done and dont look back. i figure things gonna burn down anyway. why not do it now? do it and get paid. thats the best part. getting paid for the inevitable.

"the spilling out and tumbling of words..."

jim tenenbaum, gentle jimmy t they called him, he lived off of larson and smith just outside of terrence, indiana. he spent most of his time at home with his mother, his sick mother who never really got out of bed save for when she had to do the dirty deeds and jimmy would have to come upstairs and see if mother needed a hand but usually she didnt because she didnt like jim seeing her the way she was anyway but jim didnt mind he just spent his time in his room reading and listening to his songs and writing and he was a good writer and his teacher told him he was a good writer but jim never really thought much about it but i guess it was because he liked reading more than writing maybe he thought the writers he read were better than him so he never really had the confidence. i guess you could say that. but he'd write anyway and he'd write about heroes and he'd write about girls but mostly he'd read and he'd usually read the same kind of books his father read even though he had left a long time ago but he left behind most of the books he had, books about wars and about mysteries and about things like that and he never really read anything else but that unless his teachers made him but that was only for class.

astronaut/cosmonaut

i'd like to find out, sometime in the future, when i die or maybe just through a psychic reading, that i was the reincarnation of yuri gagarin. i think i'd like that very much.