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secrets

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Don’t worry about what went aloud. I said nothing.

Our Terror Closet

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"Honey," I called out to my wife. "Why do we have Spam in the closet?" "You mean unsolicited bulk messages sent electronically?" "No--the canned, precooked meat product made by the Hormel Corporation."

Flannery O'Connor's Tea Party

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“He's the one who took five tries to find your vein during your last blood draw, right?” This question spilled from the row of twenty EKG machines that now made up the hospital building's larynx

Where I work you cannot see the sun.

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Where I work people use words like leverage. They do not appear to denote anything.

Ackermann

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When he took Medieval German Lit in graduate school, Ackermann read Der Ackermann aus Böhmen by Johannes von Tepl. His professor was amused both by his last name and that his grandparents were Germans from Bohemia. Of course, only his grandmother was from Bohemia and…

FANTASY

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Normally I would have never drank such a wine, but it was late on a Friday evening and the bottle was on the house...

Elusive Ideas in a Pineapple Under the Sea

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I cannot find my way back to the bubbling navel of the universe because of Spongebob Squarepants.

The Good Farmer

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He leans in close then, close enough that when he speaks, his words tiptoe out and tuck me in.

Optimism

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I paused in case she said more. Then, “He’s very faint but he wants to talk.” She leaned forward, chin almost resting on the grey-haired woman in front of her. “Tell him to shout.”

Amelia

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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.

Boom Boom Boom Boom

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“Man, that Fats just nothin’ but a powerhouse, nothin’ but ‘Jesus Rolled Away the Stone’ and them Cats his apostles.” La KeeSha replied, “Ya’ll a real Blues Daddy now.”

Game Day

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Being awake for the sunrise, that is the good planfor writing poemsand listening to enginesbirdsand bus stop silence.Now, I'm going to smokeout back on my roof porchfrom this atticapartmentin this desert land of big-titted blondesand listen to stadium fansrage…

When the Moon Blooms

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Your faded presence in sepia dream returns, firelight whispers and vanilla scented ash. We were a beautiful knot: sinew and hemp, burlap and magnolia petal, concrete and vapor. Gray kisses hovered overhead, misty…

Thanks for Looking After Sinamyn

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Here are a few tips/instructions to help you out (though I'm sure you'll do just fine by yourself!):Getting to the Apt.:If you're coming from Riverside, you'll want to turn onto Magnolia. So, if you're coming from north to south on Riverside, that means you'll want to turn…

Basal Distance

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are you like the rest of us and you disagree with war yes i said i disagree with war and he said only one man agrees with war but he won t go to the war

13 fragments of a somniloquy, overheard by a burglar lost in the basement complex on midsummer night

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1. there's nothing more to say about it and I don't want to be drawn2. beautiful she couldn't hear me anyway I was desperate and there were moths3. they'd replaced his head with a picture of the moon he looked4. none of them were speaking English more like a ticking a…

Dad, August 10, 2010

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Satchmo sings a love song over the sound system. People read books, tap keyboards, drink coffee, eat cake. In Barnes & Noble—more a coffee shop these days than a bookstore—I am thinking about my dad and his stomach cancer.The terror he…

Oversleeping & Getting in Trouble for It

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A few people bristled and looked at Jim, but since he was avoiding their gaze, they had no choice but to return their attention to their own table and pretend to pay attention to the conversation they previously had been pretending to pay attention to.

The Work of Beauty

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the steady, persistent work of beauty

The Meaning of Life

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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living

WRECKED

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There

A Butterfly For A Married Woman

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A married woman requests a butterfly tattoo that won't please her husband from an old tattoo artist.

thumbing through the Jesus book

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We’re on our way out, my brother and me, to the grave­yard.

GOT

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I don't know how long I was down on the curb. When I came around it took several minutes to realize that it wasn't the moon overhead at all but a street light and the sticky feeling stuff I was lying in was, yeah, my blood. And the hand on my shoulder wasn't hers. I…

Metastasis

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I am eternal/ as long as the power holds

Longshot Down Undah

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He said stuff like ‘Crikey that's a knife',” she said, “it was bad, really really bad.”

Florida

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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.

I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien

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You can’t start living in The Netherlands just like that; you need to be registered first. Once an official has confirmed you’re the person you claim to be, you can start in a job. Once an employer has confirmed you’re employed, you can apply for yo

Thin Flame

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It was impossible that you wouldn't love me

Gay Paree

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I had a crappy room on the fourth floor of a crappy hotel.