1678 12 7
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Val walks through the world, absorbed in the day to day. A plainspoken narrator drones on in his mind. The nondescript voice marks time to the beat of Val's banal footfall, hums along with the whir of Val's modest, midsize sedan. The narration is loudest in the twilight…
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16782011
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The box thuds at your feet: mug, plant, wedding photo, the 25-year pen.
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167821
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We got Bob Dylan on the wall
wriggling from the lack of music
and light among the spheres
A great doubt has been raised
and can be seen from far, far away
for they are even afraid now in heaven
that things can’t be going right
and to
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167800
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Well, it was on a Monday and you know how bad Mondays are to begin with. I had been up real late the night before playin’ poker and drinkin’. I was thinking that after a couple of hours the hangover would wear off and I’d be okay, but instead I s
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167821
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the champagne foam cascades like cherry blossom ensnared in the first gales of spring
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1678115
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when thoughts of you
waffle in through memories scent
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167875
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they got some heat here in the West
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167860
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The two walked around, taking in all the classics: the imported Russian matryoshka dolls of varying styles and bright colors; spinning tops, red Radio Flyer wagons, kaleidoscopes, and wooden yo-yo's invoked memories of Christmases past. The hand-stitched
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1678129
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now the days are empty
and time has lost its head
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167864
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We need to keep writing
because the great ones
aren’t always that great
We need to keep writing
to insure that the future
even has a future
We need to keep writing
because the wind won’t know how
or when to listen if we don’t
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16781410
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When we take Vengeance,/
shave and shower him,/
deodorize and scent him,/
clothe him in a starched shirt
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1678116
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One must not confuse the meaning / of life with the joy of living
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1677148
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And she's dying like someone who's tried living and failed.
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167733
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The next thing we knew, the KGB started tailing us everywhere we went. They must have heard about Lenin’s Paintings, was all we could figure. Because, what if they were real?
That night we went out to a pizza place where we saw the worst graffiti in t
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167776
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On Saturdays, we pull out big white poster boards, magic markers, and draw babies.
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167721
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the Griot Grrrls stopped playing their distinctive brand of power progressive acoustic worldfunk at open-mics around campus
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167763
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Now it turns out, the story doesn’t begin with the butterfly lady, herself, but with her brother.
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167763
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There was something about her eyes that he couldn't shake.
He stood in line, waiting for his chicken finger tenders and one large size 32 oz. cola. No salad (a childhood aversion he had never abandoned), and no mashed potatoes. Friday night and the eve
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167721
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Cammie Richard's house was just like all the others in Wilchester. The exterior was vaguely reminiscent of the Dutch style; gray stone with cross beams of dark wood, with two stories and a bay window. Her yard was fertilizer green, with a giant STRATFORD FOOTBALL…
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167731
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I almost forgot. Her nipples taste like that syrup from a can of peaches. The kind you aren’t supposed to eat if you are 18 or older. The kind that adds baggage to the hips and I’m certainly not about to take out an insurance policy on my ass.
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167652
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Almost to the elevation of regret.
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167611
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You know moments like these. You know how your mother ruins them.
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167684
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Our ink was disappearing. All of it.
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1676106
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"He turns in his bed, and reaches for a body,
like the blind to braille."
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167621
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I didn’t always have this metal thing poking out of the top of my head. I used to be a self-respecting farm animal amongst a barnyard of toys, but then the kids grew up.
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167621
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The chipping sound started around the time Susannah reached puberty. Not all at once, it was just now and then at first.“What's that noise?” she'd say, and everyone would cock their heads to listen. Her mother eventually took her to the doctor. He said it…
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167600
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The museum’s catalog description changed much less than the painting over those years. He wasn’t curator-in-chief of catalog descriptions, however, that task went to a curator arriving by another door.
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1676112
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Although radiation and chemo rendered him a wraith...
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167642
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Mama sleeps in bed with us. The blue of her ghost sleeps underneath me. I love her more than anything. What does she think when we are naked, when we yell, or mimic, imbibe, curse, cry, shake, make love, roll over on her, want to die?
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167620
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‘Just get out of bed,’ I reply. ‘It looks like the fairies have been at your head. You should turn your clothes inside out. Put out a biscuit. Ring a bell. Buy a rooster; or a recording of it crowing. It will keep the sprites at bay.
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