1702 8 7
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Tender veterinarian, even if you weren't so tall, or your eyes so warm, or your fingers so long, or if you didn't bend over my sick cat with such astounding grace, or shoot those quick, intense glances at me, I'd have woven dreams while in your uncommon presence. Vulnerable…
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17021212
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Your mother is a great and dying bird. Once, she tended her grand feathered nest. Once, she preened.
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17021811
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hoping for a happy outcome/
like a kindly voice on the line
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170267
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Just take the mountain curves
as tightly to the inside and
as fast as surface conditions permit
and the road’s edge
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170233
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17012010
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Practice has perfected disengagement.
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170100
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I walked around the mountains and the gravel roads that once were my home. The rain made tiny rivers in the clay that ran hard and fast, and I splashed in them until my feet were saturated and my hair was stuck to my face and in my mouth salty and I cried
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170130
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“Listen, Mother – you’re my ticket out of this burg and I’m not about to cash it in!”
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170100
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He took off his sombrero and playfully placed it on my head. “And really, don’t be upset. You’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with loving your cat.”
He was right, there is nothing wrong with loving your cat. But there is something wrong with owning a di
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170155
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What does she have / that I don’t have / that I can’t buy / for myself?
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1701167
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170111
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so I tighten hands with my castaway and say/you failed to impress in your folded peacock dress
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1701114
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My spooky cat got out again. Under the deck she ran. Out came the hose that chased her about. Fur spiked, tail pointing, yowling, she hissed at me, and back in the house she pranced. It's been two days now. She slithers out for food after…
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170167
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I start with a morsel of truth, then hide it with lies...
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170100
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This summer they had reached their fifth anniversary, the landmark they’d dubbed the Bacchanal year. Instead of exchanging gifts made of wood, they’d bought expensive wines and champagnes and emancipated their bodies of clothing for two straight days. The
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1701106
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Rarely is Quay Street so clean,
Monday in rain,
Neactain’s ticking over with
Slow jazz and crosswords,
Stout and steaming anoraks.
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170065
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You may think you've tasted envy, but yours was just a sour sip of wine at a civilized wine-tasting. Mine is bottom-shelf, well-brand gin in a biker bar with miss-the-urinal piss stains on the floor.
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170033
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Her whole life was lived between high tide and low tide, moments of giggling grandeur and moments of sheer emptiness.
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1700168
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Her clothing style varies from grunge to glamor and . . . she always looks good.
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170000
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When you have lived with pain so long, you grow old and the old man inside of you takes over. That’s just the way it is.
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170041
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Each drip off the corrugated plastic sheeting made a tinny sound that he could hear from deep within the damp sleeping bag and layers of blankets where he was trying to sleep.
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1700127
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The fish would need a name, but she didn’t know how to tell if it was a boy or a girl. Did fish have penises?
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170032
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All I wanted was to love her.
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170021
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The car has been parked there for slightly more than a day now, and nothing has occurred—there’s nothing “unusual,” nothing “amiss.” Except that it’s there, still, as he follows his boys to school.
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170023
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BABY MOUSE She and the baby squeeze into the neon blue star-studded rocket ship in front of K-Mart, a tight fit because the baby's still inside her and the ship is made for under ten year olds and the steering wheel dents her stomach and the baby backs up and…
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170066
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At night, I wake up, and Daddy's in the bathroom with a hanger in his mouth....
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170087
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169932
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I have committed to nothing. Therefore I have committed to something. The first sentence is now moot, and this story will eat itself.
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169974
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You're a good dog, she whispered to him, a good brave dog. Her face was tight with soap.
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169997
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It doesn't have to be force grown betweenus. We entwine naturally. It's agood feeling to have a friend who at oncedoesn't require a hothouse ceiling laidbetween each invisible touch. There's justwind. There's just rain. There's just sun. There's just you.There's just…
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