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fire and ice

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“Who says?” she purred in reply “They all do” he countered smiling , chewing on an ice cube “All of them, huh?” She leaned forward, raising a wicked left eyebrow and whispered, “And just who are they, anyway?”

Dr. Wong

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Hippy health food. It all began with Hannah’s homemade granola.

Voice of the Century

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Feminine, safe, though disembodied,/ she shapes your life in ways/ your mother never could.

Can I Take My Gun Up To Heaven?

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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.

The Art of Madness

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He had an addiction to elevating himself to higher levels of potential: some would call this ambition.

Forgive Me Mamma

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His footing unsure and his clothes covered in vomit, he grabs the railing and stumbles up the three steps. He pulls off his shirt, finds a cleaner area on the puke-covered garment, wipes sweat off his forehead, dripping wet from the humid, stormy night, a

Washed Up

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At noon on a weekday in the off season, when the trickle of tourists who wandered into the Mermaid Curio Shoppe had died out completely, she walked in with wet hair, leaving tiny puddles on the floorboards.

The Greatest Narcissist on Earth

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I forgot how masterful you are, way better than a pickpocket. After our meeting, I drove home with one hand. It felt funny but I figured I'd absentmindedly put the other in my purse or tossed it into the backseat with my jacket. In my…

The Solution to All My Problems

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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.

The Letter

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You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world

Headstone III

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My only brother. Frantic flesh clings to bone.

Cross-stitch

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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.

Wedding Bells & Space Junk [July challenge]

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Right away, like toadstools, there were crackpot theories. The first: that kids out on the lake dock, against fire department warnings...

I've Been Here Before

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I’ve been here before. it wasn’t you though— it was her before you, and then she before her … before you.

Tumbalalaika

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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

No Algebra Again Today Haiku

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Our lives depend on/ engineers

Sideburns

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. . . quit being so rigid, open up to the pasta.

Their Nipples

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The soft twin winds of peace and harmony flow through your nipples It is not milk that gives such flow but the whiff of life’s spirit, the wind of poetry the renewal and the silence of the love you give me I suck like a new

Please Come to Boston? (Memoir)

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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.

Marriage, California Style

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Out the window we could see the parking lot and, across the street, the Bijou Moonlight Laundromat.

An Open Letter to my Fictionaut Family

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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…

Eighty-eight

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She realised that things you can't prove can be more intimate than the things you know to be true.

MAO

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She was as distant as Mao, someone I never met, but whom everyone carried in their eyes,

The Misanthrope Confesses

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I murdered my inner child/ at 7 and neither denied/ nor confessed the act until now.

George, Love, Shakespeare and Company

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"Love, against the dying of the light." (An unusual story about George Whitman, former owner of the revered & beloved Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, France.)

Kepler On The Bus

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On the bus I sat like an ounce.

Lesson 38

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You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

My Love For You Is Real

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Caroline smiles before reaching out to touch a shapeless shadow dancing on the wall, closing her eyes as the bumps in the primer serve brail to oncoming dreams.

Before California Fell into the Sea

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The trail wound through oak trees and climbed up a hill. The sun was high and hot whenever we came out from the cover of the trees. We stopped under a tree. “OK old man,” Leda said. She came to me and kissed me. Then she was unbuttoning my pants and kne

Eidetic (from OPEN CITY Magazine Number 16)

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Who do you think are the true intellectuals? I'm a fan of both Gore Vidal and Harold Bloom although most people can't stand either of them. George Plimpton is interesting...