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.

"his blood was fused with turnip juice and sunlight"

thomas edward britton wakes up from a coma and stumbles down the stairs, iv's in tow. "what the mother fuck is this?" he says, dragging rusted pipe and tubing behind him. his legs give in in halfway down the spines of the building and he collapses in on himself like an accordion. "where are my keys. where are my goddamn keys." he exclaims, gripping what remains of his left arm. "you mother fuckers." he spits into a cylinder at the base of the steps and waits for the ping sound of saliva on metal to judge just how far up he really is. thomas edward crawls along the floor, shuffling as best he can, hoping to find someone to scream at. "asshole," he says into reflective tiles. a roar comes from the south end of the building. thomas edward spins around, the force of it tearing needle from arm, a dark liquid cascading down the floor. "what is the time? what is the time?" he spews. once. twice. and slips back into a coma.

my neighbor has a son who sleeps in a drawer

i have a car that runs on shredded wheat
and in the morning i fuel with two percent
to get the wheels moving
i have a toadstool to sit on at night
and i sing "coral. the breadwinner." to put it to bed
in a glossy, yellow glow
i have a neighbor down two houses from me
whose son sleeps in a drawer below socks
to keep warm when moonlight travels far
and i have two hands and eight fingers
but i only really use the five
because it's much easier when i make my mother's cupcakes

caroline stevens

my partner in crime, her name was caroline stevens. she lived next door to me. she was nice. she was pretty. in the 3rd grade when we were on spring break we snuck into mr. mccuphrey's backyard. he didn't know we were there. we just wanted to climb the giant tree in his backyard. we always wished one of us had a tree like that of our own. we wanted to build a treehouse. scott tanner had a treehouse and we were jealous. but he was a dumb kid anyway.

i remember when we went to the drive in theater one month. we stayed in the back of my moms car. she pulled up in reverse so we could lay back and watch the movie and eat snacks. i remember one of the people there got into a fight with another because his car was too big and his kids couldn't see the movie. it was kind of scary. caroline was worried but it turned out okay.

caroline and i, we were good friends, but then one day she went to another school and i didn't hear from her as much. but then we started talking again, but it wasn't the same. i remember that pretty well.