1812 12 9
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Some time ago, I began to write you letters with the idea of helping your newspaper become a more complete map of our little shared world.
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181287
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I'd been working for two years as a barista in a Starbuck's in a giant, two-story Borders in an upscale mall on Rt. 355, a main artery between Washington D.C., and Frederick, Maryland. I'd finished my M.F.A in 2000 and was trying to build up steam for more grad…
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181233
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IN BOX 12 OF DD FORM 214, the Department of Defense requires a narrative reason for every military discharge. Mine reads: Continued involvement of a discreditable nature with civilian and military authorities.
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1812101
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I wonder, God. Do you sit around and play with the universe like it was your Wii? Or your Farmville? Or maybe your little iphone app? I mean, really. Did it ever occur to you that the little men, women and children on your screen actually bleed? Do you think…
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1812104
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What happens to a town when all of its songbirds go on strike?
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1811168
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This latest married man who lives at a great distance has leeched her energy in that very particular way such men do. Next to him, I am as interesting as long division.
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18112916
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"...they ran shirtless like pagans under southern stars."
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181110
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Yellow tape marks a walkway that was previously unknown. Caution, caution. Lounge turned waiting room for a ballroom turned infirmary. An entrance, an exit, caution, caution. The line is of amusement park ride length. But no roller coaster at the end, only an antidote…
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18111614
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In the St. Mark's Bar and Grill romance is a speedy thing, a blurred whir of grope, kiss, connect. The tricky thing is timing: to leave in time for the boozy love of the hour to carry through to full, naked contact. Some succeed of course. Others overstay, hang past the…
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181121
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With my heart preserved, I shoved a handful of baubles back in its place: some pages torn from my favorite books, a bass guitar string, a butane lighter, a shot of vodka. I stitched myself back up and left the roof in favor of the attic, where I hung my s
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181044
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181065
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I peeled off a hundred. For the screwdriver, I said. The kid shook his head, made a pushing-away gesture. You need it worse’n I do right now, he said.
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1810139
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Dear Fictionaut Family,Some of you may recognize my name and remember reading my work, some of you may have joined more recently and be wondering what the hell I'm doing addressing you directly. I began writing on Fictionaut in 2010, during four years as I was fragmenting…
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1810115
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Hippy health food. It all began with Hannah’s homemade granola.
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181010
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I've been invited to speak at Emerson College in Boston—it will be the summer of 2012, and I'll be speaking on running an online literary magazine; in this case, my own, Anderbo.com.
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18103315
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To envy faith, to envy love --//
is there a fate more hateful? Choices/
scatter like stars. Too many.
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181000
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I thought of Ruth burrowed deep in the nest of her closet and quickly jumped into the footlocker. I nearly stopped breathing as he entered his bunker.
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181033
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Other things are on my mind when the Tupperware lady says, "First, let's move your couch over by the door and the table here."
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18092316
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They will take you, naked,
and put their tongues and fingers
into intimate, erogenous openings
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180965
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We agreed I would go back up
to the cabin for another bottle.
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180900
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As Mayumi ran toward the battle, she watched helicopters over the giant centipede explode and rain down on the street below. Lightning bolts, fireballs, and water balls that burst into rain, littered the skies.
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18092821
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My only brother. Frantic flesh clings to bone.
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180922
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Janice’s jaw dropped when I told her how much we could get for it. “Enough to never work again and get a nice new pair of these,” I said, squeezing her tits.
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1809104
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They live a simple life..two solitudes by lamplight.
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180942
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I had the hair of a metal god, cracking it against the air whenever the stereo belched fists.
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1809127
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I have no more use for the beautiful words you used to like so much for me tosend you alone. See my feathers donot so much hide me now as giveme away; I tend to feel farfrom home. Forgive me this. Theend jumped by me quicker than anorange flower cricket on its…
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180864
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When the arguing started, their voices would get louder and louder, till they broke into my dreams. That night, I woke and listened in the dark for what felt like a very long time. Perhaps I should have been afraid, but I wasn't. For one thing, they never
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1808117
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I walk back home, alone and without the bus fare. Distancing myself from the shadows that float interminably against the drowsy sun. Where frightened boys often roam, going in circles against the long lines of epitaphs and gravestones. Puzzling…
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18081510
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There was gonna be a rumble in our schoolyard. An outright brawl. It was gonna be just like Blackboard Jungle. Only real. Not some movie at the Duwamish Drive-In. Every boy in my school, it seemed like, was lined up outside except me. All the third and fourth graders…
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18082719
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On the bus I sat like an ounce.
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