1817 11 7
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My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…
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181686
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Every lunch time the numerous small jukeboxes that are distributed about the dining area fill the air with webs of King Curtis and Benny Goodman.
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1816108
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Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or
that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up
and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.
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18162013
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I sprinkle seaweed over the water and all twelve rise to feed. Two of them went down the hole but knew to come up. A toilet has mouths and caverns, not a bad place at all for fish.
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18151413
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181596
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I’m maybe only four. Not smoking cigarettes found in street gutters yet. That will come the next year, when I’m five. Maybe when I’m six, and Andy’s five, my pal from across the street. That’s my tricycle parked behind this pack of kids that look to be ne
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181520
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when women’s hair shrinks into tight curly balls and sits on top of their heads like scrunches of wool, blowing in the wind, hanging from the mouths of recently shot deer.
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18151413
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. . . clinging to life in a shroud of winter air. It veered up five flights to a sweltering summer night on the roof . . .
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181522
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Most people assume I’m gay, and have assumed I’m gay since I was in fifth grade. Maybe sooner. Maybe fifth grade is just my first memory of recognizing what other people believed true about me. But coming out as a gay man in 1987, when I was in fifth gra
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18152618
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Watching water fall in the longest waterfall/
becomes immediately tedious
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1815114
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Upon learning the fetus has fingernails, Missy texts her boyfriend: It has nails! He won’t reply because he’s just left for war, but she does it just the same.
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181473
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Recently I think I became someone else.
When the alarm clock rings in the morning, it sounds sharper than usual; getting up, my feet don't seem to quite touch the floor; looking into my bathroom mirror, my face seems to be melting, sliding, my eyes dri
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181472
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He had long since quit listening to the incessant clanging of the bell. He stood, ringing the bell, squinting into the setting sun, nauseous from the car exhaust, his body aching for alcohol.
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181488
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your matching glasses up to mine in the fake air anymore, or click your widening fingernails against the hard bed railings in protest of anything you might be feeling in the floating silt-like depths of your jagged nerves, but…
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1814118
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in time there is nothing more important for meto write than this line. It isn't defined in the way you'd like perhaps, but it doesn't matter because it will be true, and you will be true, and I will be the message you get. Some signal has…
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1813175
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I try to help my pet-mouse by dangling cheese from a piece of string in front of him. Or by making meow sounds. Sometimes, my pet-mouse wins, sometimes the hamster with the great body.
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181300
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[continued from part one...]After sweeps, my schoolwork started to slip. I had trouble paying attention in class, and my workbooks and tests came back from the teacher marked in ketchup red ink. I had always been a good student, and this academic…
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181377
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She came from the land of rumpled sheets. She was the very definition of sex. She was the breeze through the wind chimes of his heart. One might say that she actually invented the orgasm. All mirages are this way. Perfect until they disappear. They
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181330
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“What part of ‘only bettors can watch the Yeti fight’ do you not understand?!”, he yelled. “Either place a bet or get the hell out of here!”
I begrudgingly gave him all of the money I had on me, about two hundred, and placed it on Demonio B
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18131817
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One day my wife got so mad at me she raked her fingernails down my face.
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181342
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The stern tone of the chairwoman made him miss his mother, the snap of her accusations, the sting of her belt on the backs of his legs.
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181395
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I envisioned bound feet of ancient Asian women who wore embroidered slippers that hid grotesque disfigurements.
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181342
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Flush, a sputter, and the water level rises, slowly. Flush again.
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18131311
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I could never be a chef.Preparing creations that will merely be consumed.If I were a chef,I'd have to create dishes that required chewingand chewing and chewing.I'd find it better for my dishes to be destroyed in the mouth.Remembered for their…
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181222
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She would have moved on to the next guy in the next bar, the one who looked like danger on a stick.
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181223
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“How scared?” Mikey said, not wanting to find out, and already looking pretty nervous.
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181220
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“I am NOT a hooker.”
“What exactly are you, then?” Marlene raised her slim eyebrows. Her almond shaped eyes and high-cut bangs gave her the appearance of a 1950s Barbie doll.
“Well…” I stirred my coffee and looked down. I wasn't sure wh
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181284
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None of us ever thought this would happen.
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18122417
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He wore his hip in his hips, his lipsShe wanted to know if he would lick the edgesWhen he pulled the coffee cup from his mouthA bit of foam clung to his moustacheShe watched it there, wondering if he wouldTwirl it off with his fingersOr lick it, his tongue darting out like…
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181210
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The schedule fell smoothly into place: After Imogene went home at the end of the day, Calvin locked the office door, then he and Rosalie marched into the examination room and she flossed him.
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