1161 4 2
|
A walled city doesn’t let you out any more easily that it has let you in earlier.
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119542
|
Before I grew used to it
I would wake to the sound
of the Amtrak whistle
echoing down along the tracks
behind our trailer park
and wonder who was hurtling where
through the dark night and across
this wide Illinois prairie
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102844
|
I will always remember that
picture of you in your
bright blue summer dress,
with your arms spread out
against a wooden fence in
Central Park.
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91144
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Don’t shout. Be nice
Cheer up. Sit up
Straight. Don’t play
With your food. Elbows
Off the table. Watch
Your language. Use
Your napkin. Eat the
Crust
Stop fidgeting
Stop scratching
Close your mouth
When you chew
Remember to
Clea
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267243
|
They were all in love with tortured musicians, 22-year-old geniuses who hanged themselves after making one perfect album. The musicians generally lived in England. It was safer that way.
|
108442
|
By lunch:
The dryer is an F-5 dervish of mismatched socks, blue jeans and your yellowing college T's, lovingly held onto. For a moment there is a comforting warmth and softness to their smell. In the debris strewn landscape of the living room a carcass
|
126544
|
On a street-lit night in Jeddah.
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137743
|
Nancy's brother, Ronnie would wait until church was out and pull the bench up to the piano play and sing show tunes, even humming them loudly if he didn't remember the lyric. Crooning away — as if he had the lead in a Broadway musical. Well, that was part of it,…
|
73440
|
It has been more than three decades since I returned to work from a noon union meeting to find myself, along with about twenty others, locked out of the printing plant where we worked.
|
135841
|
The little girl spooned strawberry yogurt into her mouth as a pleasant morning breeze swept across the balcony of the hotel. The girl lifted the cup and stuck her tongue inside to lick the yogurt off the edges. Across the small round table, the girl's mother sat…
|
145141
|
Refuse to go to the church service, even though you already missed the funeral. Tell his mother something came up. Call his phone over and over, just to hear his voice, until his mother asks you to stop. Make a recording of his voicemail. Delete it an
|
127942
|
True facts about Redbeard the communist pirate.
|
85943
|
Jimi, Jim, and Janis
Kurt and Amy too
They died and gone to heaven
And fit inside a shoe
Room 114’s where they lie
Their eyes wide open
|
122644
|
The last chick in the nest
|
92844
|
|
126143
|
I'd never seen a dead person before, let alone one that was living just
seconds earlier.
|
178743
|
She'd make a great catch in the rain. Because in the rain nothing moves. No cat girl of deep shade eyeliner. No saint of dark corners.
|
175241
|
"Make a wish," she whispered.
|
131443
|
There was a body in the backseat, and they drove through the highways at night to a late night radio show that played 80’s power ballads. He said: “I am really glad you’re here for me.”
|
57842
|
"Polio?" people wondered. They asked: "Is that contagious?" Nobody knew. It was 1953. The epidemic raged on. Children in some towns were being made to stay indoors during the polio season for fear that the disease was airborne. It was putting an unnatura
|
140041
|
When I bite into a York Peppermint Pattie, I get the sensation of being curled in a ball inside a cold, dark cave filled with my darkest, most paralyzing fears.
|
83240
|
Once we got to my house, Lynda had everything drinkable in the house open and in everybody's hands before I knew it. She tossed down a bottle of my father's beer, then started on a bottle of whiskey that was open. She took a straight mouthful and offe
|
100142
|
Royce fell from Grace and landed in the fountain surrounding her pedestal. It wasn't the first time Royce had climbed the statue. It was the first time he'd been sober.
|
86143
|
The bum had abandoned
More than half of his rich
Chocolate cake
In the bottom of the shopping cart
The wording on the top of the cake read
"Happy Birthday Doug"
But it also read
"From Doug"
Either he was too full
To eat his own words
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64644
|
He didn't know why he kept writing. There was no reason to write. People ceased reading. They played video games. They watched Netflix. They walked down crowded city streets staring at smartphones. He was sustained in some weird way by the momentum of writing. As if the…
|
107042
|
After it is over, I go out into the world, to the café. The flower sellers are setting up their booth outside the glass doors. Classical guitar over the speakers. A soft rain falling. Heads bowed, reading the news. Coffee, croissants, cappuccino. This g
|
110641
|
But, The Driver talked about speed. Something about pulling her off easy or we’ll blow our tires. “No telling what’s off that shoulder,” he’d say.
|
116644
|
There are moments in life where it's like you're driving late at night and you should be on your way home but really you're just rolling along aimlessly through the city streets when suddenly you turn a corner and realize the road is open and empty for miles to come, a…
|
102042
|
She was the clerk in the photography shop.
|
116642
|
The rain is filling up my shoes,
I can’t see
through my glasses,
Rain all inside me.
|
