1467 3 3
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I know I’m slipping
into my mother’s skin. I answer the phone
with her voice; her hands grind the coffee beans.
And who is this listening to NPR in the morning
while the fresh-faced girls in the neighborhood trudge toward school,,
peonies han
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146732
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It was spring. The stepmother brought her newish daughter to the toy store for a surprise.
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146720
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The cabin has windows all around, like ribbon tying a birthday present.
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1467136
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...galaxies burst into an infinite slide-show of the absolute... god?
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146700
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If you want job security on this planet, you'd better study art.
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146755
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146766
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Now, at last, she finds what she's been searching for. Worms. Like bitty pale larva, like half-moons of air trapped under fingernails. She thinks she sees one twitch; she blinks more furiously and hates herself for it.
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146765
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They think Van Gogh heard music when he looked at his starry nights. Working at a Bingo parlor, you get to believing in a one-in-a-million shot just as much as you doubt the rarity of a sure thing.
I only worked part time at the bingo parlor because I ne
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14671110
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I should have known to wear boots on Teddy’s motorcycle, but I didn’t know that when the engine heated the exhaust pipe became hot as a griddle. Teddy didn’t warn me, and I thought there was something wrong with that, but I let it go the way I jumped on h
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146764
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And then, and then, and then! After all that, this. After all that bullshit with her Dad, the Associate Principal, the idiotic counselor, and that psychotic police officer, after all that, this: a dead black cat. Blocking her path! Right in the middle of the street! …
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146793
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I had dreams of being permeated with the heat of Caramelized sisters. A declawed cat kept creeping along my apartment walls.
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146600
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[CAUTION: READING THIS STORY COULD CAUSE IRREPARABLE "CULTURE SHOCK" AND IS NOT ADVISED FOR OLD FOLKS, PREGNANT WOMEN, OR THOSE WITH "MONSTROUS, FRAGILE EGOS"!]
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146676
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2. humility You know what silly does? Silly guarantees that you will enjoy the moment as the moment for the moment. Clowns make fun of silly. Isn't that ironic? They are in essence the opposite of their own image. That's why so many people see them as evil--because you…
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146694
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None of us took it too seriously when Gregory from underwriting said he was dating a real-life witch. Being an underwriter is not as interesting as say being a writer. That's why the greatest underwriter in America, Ajit Jain, gets paid per hour what Jame
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146633
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To what better worlds remain.
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146645
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I have/been you/years before/of course
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146665
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The tapestry of time gets another stitch.
The countdown clock rolls forward.
The whole crazy picture gets a little bit
clearer.
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146676
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Revocable Love It was easy lying there with My head on her left breast Listening to the strong Business-like beating of Her heart. She looked down and said Quietly, I told you my love Was revocable. I give it To many men and then I take It back. …
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146688
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Before the saw came my fist through the wall. Now I kneel on the crumbled drywall in my son's closet holding a flashlight, peering into the hole at the plumbing parts I'm supposed to replace. On the other side of the wall the bathtub faucet drips. It is my second…
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146686
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We are prisoners of anticipation.
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146654
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While space and time opened up for us, the ground accelerated its attempts to devour the astronaut. Grasses grew up around his edges. Seeds propagated in the folds of his suit, tendrils found their way into the mysterious holes for the missing hoses that
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146643
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"I'll tell you one thing I don't want to see, armed confrontation, leading to domestic warfare."
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1466107
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Behind the wainscoting, the mice scratch, struggling to keep warm.
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146696
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Every time she tries to sleep they come; legions of small armored things scuttle claws aloft across the purple sand as soon as she stops moving.
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14661715
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...He steps back from the abyss,
inner eye envisioning the ink sip of a fountain pen,
the hard, hot brain frenzy that sends phrases marching
toward another bridge between oblivion and art.
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14661213
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My wife goes away for a few days to the little town where Hitchcock filmed The Birds.
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146530
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He was dead when he tried to wake up.
“Wake up,” he yelled silently to himself, although it didn’t sound silent to his voice.
“Brr, brr, brr,” shouted his alarm clock as it glared two red fives, a colon and a seven
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146545
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In all the years we lived here we never had any issues from the power towers behind our house, other than them being slightly unsightly. I didn't even notice them when we would socialize out back, especially when drinking. When it rains you can sometimes
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1465109
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It was all I was convinced / in designing the encounter.
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14651814
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I become a lake, a river, a stream, an ocean that will one day be able to move anything, anyone.
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