n a t e p r i t t s

n a t e p r i t t s
	:Space Ship: :The Story You’ve Been Waiting For: :For Sale: :The Enemy:

:Space Ship:
	Miles above the Earth, in our long yellow boat, my friends & I get all weepy about the many burger joints we can’t visit back home since we are, as I said, miles above the Earth. "There was one that would not allow the use of ketchup," said my friend in green, the earnest one. "One demanded the addition of pickles," said my friend in red who is always joking in a way that makes everyone feel vague & colorless. Space stretched out before us, infinite. My stomach grumbled, aching for destination.
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:The Story You’ve Been Waiting For:
	My friends & I believe in excluding newcomers from our secrets: secret lair, secret handshake. We collect our own separate feelings of scorn & rage & elitism the way other groups of friends collect sea shells on the shore of the vast ocean of welcome. But we are protected, encased in a diamond hard sense of self-worth. Shoot arrows at us & see if you can break through. Secretly, it’s what we most want.
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:For Sale:
	Men with hats are taking bids on my friends. The availability of my friend in green, the earnest one, initiates a bidding war among only the bidders with hats & mustaches. My friend in red, whose jokes fall flat, sold quickly but for much less than was polite. Slowly, the men with hats buy up all my friends & I’m left alone on stage with no idea how to gauge my worth.
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:The Enemy:
	My friends & I, we have only one real enemy but he is a flake & so we don’t worry about him much. Sometimes he’ll see us walking around the mall together & he’ll come running over, his big dumb mouth opening wide. It is hard for us to look at him; he wears a silly headband with pictures of the moons & stars. They don’t glow the way the real moon & stars would. Red always tries to say something to lighten the mood: "Is that a moon on your head or is the angle of descent really just a luminous good time?" Our enemy holds up both hands, all ten fingers spread out, & talks & talks until we are late for the movie we were hoping to see. This is, usually, the extent of his villainy. But once he smiled when I stubbed my toe. His intentions clear, his inner evil showing, my friends & I have tried to avoid him ever since.
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NATE PRITTS is the author of SENSATIONAL SPECTACULAR (forthcoming, BlazeVOX) as well as several chapbooks including BIG CRISIS (Forklift), WINTER CONSTELLATIONS (horse less) & the forthcoming (SONNETS FOR THE FALL) (PARCEL). Poems have recently been published in Gulf Coast, Conduit & Court Green & online at Past Simple, Keepgoing & Bedazzler. The editor & sole shareholder of H_NGM_N, an online journal of poetry, poetics, & c., Nate lives in Natchitoches, LA.