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Quiet

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He says, You think too much and he grins a grin that has all of the attic keys on a wrought iron ring, on a chain.

Good Luck Sailor

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On a ship twice run aground a sailor cranked a rope round a spool bigger than his head. He could see overboard and also the strip of deck on which he walked down to get to the crank. What he noticed most, as always, were the green echoes in the sea foam against…

True Vocation

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After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

Arcana Magi - c.28: Our Hearts as One

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Oryn knelt down beside Alysia and grabbed her white and light blue hair. She pulled it back, and tried to get an emotional response. Their eyes locked in place. Sparks of anger clashing between their faces.

The Mirror Tires of Looking at Itself

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Sure, to a teacher, life is a paper / but what would life be to a druggist?

After Tom Phillips

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but still whisper the brick / and mortar details in both ears / at once, twice.

Staring at a Bird Feeder

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Will it strike suddenly?

Mermaids Need Other Mermaids

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Pauleen tries to split open her legs because she doesn’t understand how to love someone without them.

Is it True about all the Lies

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He wrote, wrote, wrote with the sharp eye of an eagle...

Taking a Job

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Teaching never occurred to me in college. I took workshops and wrote often. Friends and classmates, meanwhile, switched from studio majors to Art Education, or from English to Certification. Not me. Teaching high-schoolers would be all wrong. Briefly, I…

Ouch!

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I spot another fat lady in another part of the store, and I slap her butt, too. She tells me I'm a bad boy.

~the brilliant machine~

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when the sun goes down alone vice is forgotten in the night wind your lover's voice on the phone held fast in the balance of gravity and momentum overcoming inanimate objects and the unknown

The Escapists

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I sought to feel something. I hunted my mortality. I craved that rush of life pulsating through my veins.

Brown and Blue

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She was in love with a boy whose eyes were so brown that she sat stopped in the restaurant at the anniversary dinner with the spoon in her slow chocolate fondant. Out of the corner of her eye, around the back of her head, under the table knees knocking

Machine-Gunning Butterflies

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I was making good bread as a New York studio musician and jingle writer, anonymous back-room jobs.

The Get-Up

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There was a children’s lit theme running through the party. Aside from Annemarie’s costume, there was a Harry Potter, a Pinocchio, and a Grinch.

Something Short

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It went like this: We were at the river. It had been a long day. The sun set over the hill tops, now. Me and Danny sat by the edge with buckets of water full of small fish and some dead crab that we'd got from the market, earlier and looked out over the small waves the…

Poets and Roadkill

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It is indisputable that poets love roadkill...

She Could Have Given Him Strawberries

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She lets go and it slides back too slowly.

Hysteria

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On the birthday before he started school, he received a pencil case from his paternal grandparents. The violet, oblong pouch contained a pencil and a pencil sharpener in the same color. He didn't remember what had happened with the pencil or the sharpener, but he had…

Giacometti

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He tells me that only a few things had happened in his life but some of them he had felt deeply.

Shana (Refuse)

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Papa said he'd be in the stands watching: section H, 5th row, seat 35. During warmups, she had looked, during stretches, she had looked, but she had stopped looking right before the race."Don't worry about me," he had said. "Focus on the race," so when the man had said on…

Sex in the Hothouse

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"Heaven-high, choking on our own breath and each other's tongues."

Coins

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“Have you ever thought what stars are made of?” “No,” he said. The man nodded seriously. “I hadn’t either. Not until I met the Star Catcher. He told me all the stars in the universe are actually coins. Coins! Big coins. Small coins. Different colors

An Old Peach

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Allen would stroll the remains of the orchard, reminiscing with Tad, flirting with dementia.

Brink of Extinction_Chapter One

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The year is 2110. The earth is no longer habitual for human beings. The oceans are gone, the sky is red and radiated and the last vestiges of human civilian are located within the confines of massive barrier cities. For a century mankind has been at war w

Nourish

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The mouth on my breasts is hungry, searching, needing...

Coffee Shop

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the/ orange/ tastes/ welcome

Scandal, in Eight Parking Arrangements

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4. Hers blocking driveway, his diagonal in grass

Me, Butterfly Hu, and the Damnable Season

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When the city froze and the darkness began to arrive ahead of rush hour, my pills worked; Butterfly Hu’s did not. In a double blind trial, you can’t know who gets the miracle, and who gets the sugar.