2136 9 3
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Midway through the fall semester, an unremarkable girl in Professor Woody's Advanced Fiction workshop dyed her hair an unnatural shade of dark, changed her name to Tasmina, and turned in a story filled with made-up words.
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93593
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Can anyone remember what the Great American dream was?
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123996
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Birds fly and people
hurry in the wind and rain like it's a matter
of pity.
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148793
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You looked like someone I didn't want to know. I guess that's why I got in the car that night. My penchant for self-destruction was aroused by your black nail polish and the lavender circles under your eyes. You looked like someone that could hurt me, yeah, that's why I got…
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142796
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Listen to him barking in the night. Fear shifts on the bed next to you, hogging the covers. Stare at the ceiling and wonder what to do. Forget his birthday. Forget he is forty-two. Forget the phone call from Berkeley twenty-one years…
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106897
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Antibiotic ointment didn't help. Maybe Granny medicine would.
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159997
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Rory and Betty Sloan entered the first of 40 rooms in the new Motel 6 to place Holy Bibles in 40 night tables.
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97398
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What will become/
of the resource-sucking poor
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236296
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In the evidence of broad daylight, in the secrecy of darkness, in drizzling rain that teased the embers, Annabelle worked hard.
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234994
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I hate walking into restaurants and cafes by myself to meet someone. I always feel awkward, as if no one will claim me. I'm hanging on the threshold now for an agonizing few moments scanning the room until I see my friend.“Hi!” she says, waving her cup at…
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143096
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I guess at the end you’re only
looking forward. Or upward actually,
since you can only lie there on your back
looking upward, straight ahead toward infinity,
your mouth in a grimace, with the ghostly
pink lips peeled back from the teeth.
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149591
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Literary agents, also editors,
But most assuredly not my creditors,
Someday they won’t mean jack to me—
The people who won’t get back to me.
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143692
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Cat's ass was on fire. The roof was scorching hot. Her clothes were in a pile by the door that led to the roof. She was sitting next to the ventilation duct, her hands outstretched behind her, her knees bent before her. Jim was standing in front of…
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137194
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There was only the sound of crickets.
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156598
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This is the parallel room I keep my heart in. Got a solo fireplace. I don't want to invite anything else into the story. It doesn't matter if no one knocks on the door ever again. I'm too shy to hope for much more than a couple of Interesting shadows…
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106195
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The pen point sits motionless on the paper...
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120797
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The same, some things you Can't explain, most trees Have felt it go bone dry at the roots before. I've learned to let love Go bye bye. You think they don't Want to answer your pathetic knocks, But they're…
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1431910
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I wanna make
banana peel poems--
slippery little booby traps
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130196
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"It was one kiss. No tongue. What does that even mean?" Lindley tried to see Leah as any other patient, "What do you want it to mean?" "I don't know," Leah whined, tears welling, "something, maybe. You know I hate surprises." Her sister was not another…
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69196
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Imagine a morning without dawn, without daylight ... The night birds still hoot, the flowers wait for the light to change their make-up, black birds have locked their beaks. A morning unlike any other ... The moon above continues to reign over the milky way, the stars to…
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207393
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The year I lick so much windowpane off stamps I have to use Elmer's glue to back the twenty-center for a postcard cash request to my mother, that I am alive note at the end of term, is the year of all the "wine" parties.
"Wine" is what we put down
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138198
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we name invasive species,
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152599
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I should have buried him on the saddleback and kept my mouth shut. I'll murder the bastard who did it.
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121894
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Fear I’ll be stuck here without a ladder
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158599
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Andalusia I. partners in sunset the hawk and I in ballet ..............................he:..........the small flame in the wind ..............................I:............the last tremor of grace the…
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139794
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When it starts looking bad enough, I bundle up and head out the door.
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129099
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It’s layer VII we adore/
and mourn
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189298
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My wife stood in the doorway and talked to the back of my head. “You really should talk to somebody about this,” she said.
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154893
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There is only one other person in the pool, in the adjacent lane. I stop to adjust my goggles and notice his waterproof ear buds.
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189593
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The headlines were my source of information and contact. Four Soldiers Killed in Baghdad read one. Seven Ambushed in Fallujah. I’d read them, look for his name, and maybe clip it out. It put me there; put me in touch with him.
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