1313 5 5
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awoke in confusion, fear and hurt never seen before that day a year past
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131322
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Christmas Eve arrives with a relief that the season of joy will soon be over so I can feel the pain I am denying myself. Rosie presses her face against the kitchen window, leaving ghostlike impressions of the tip of her nose and her lips on the glass tha
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131362
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The night is a jelly slosh, a fertile rumble, a rhumba, black and seeping, thick. An arm rises.
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131342
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I was raised in a big city in the slow South. I know a little about cross cultural dining and where Delta Blues collides with Sly Stone, Al Green, and Zeppelin. Dirty rice in the Dirty South. Fried chicken, collards, and pintos. Fried velveeta…
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1313106
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Blending in at a rock concert in ballet flats was harder than I thought it would be. The heavy eye makeup and lit cigarette I never brought to my lips put me somewhere between “Trying Too Hard” and “Bless Her Heart.”
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131321
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...She smells like Mentholadium all the time which is one of them old lady smells. When I get up there, she says, “I’ll scrub the bee jesus out of you little girl,” and by God, I have a purty good bath that day.
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131396
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Let's make a monetary enticement for writers who can revel in the magnitude of this tragedy...
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1313119
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13132111
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In a time of drought,/
the sound of rain is sweet/
and joyful music.
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13131814
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It is a small life, circumscribed/
by debt and income, age and infirmity./
The Hidden Hand thrusts its middle finger/
high.
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1313910
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For instance, my sister's husband. If I say brown socks, yellow boxer shorts, fishnet undershirt. If I say plastic bag and two tepid beers. And a voice that glides to falsetto when he: you're a tad too obscene for my taste, Julia, while he tries to light the filter end of…
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131200
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The tsunami started, ironically enough, with a phone call.
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131210
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He first saw her stepping off a water taxi by the Long Docks in the rain at night, her right arm atrophied from some early childhood disease, dangling like an apology, her other holding a cigarette. Her wet black hair hung past her shoulders and her eyes
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1312128
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I pointed, trying to keep a rising frisson of alarm from my voice.
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131277
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yet fiction, despite contrary reports, from two ends of the American spectrum, does not mean lies, in my HUM
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1312189
|
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13121312
|
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131220
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There is just something about a thin, white cotton v-neck t-shirt, he thought, as he ran his hand over bleary eyes and dehydrated lips. He wanted her, as always. But he needed just a little more rest. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. It…
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1312133
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The two were huddled in a corner of an alley, joined by some others that I’m sure wandered into the darkness when they realized they were far from alone. That alley was the one off Market Street. I used to steal candy from the corner shop when I was nin
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131155
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beat them with fists and purses.
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131165
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The bar sounds grew (as bar sounds will) until everything rushed together -- clinking glass, tinkling ice, laughter and zippers going down then up.
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131121
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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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131143
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"Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut."
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131185
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It was by the well on one cold early spring morning
|
131166
|
A man who is sexually attracted to playground equipment was recently banned from “any location with a slide” after being caught having sex with one. Christopher Johnson, 46, was described by the newspaper who reported this item as having a “powerful…
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131176
|
In the blacklight of the storm, mother would tremble, spit and sway as the shutters would clatter and she would give away her balance. It was more than my heart could bear. She would always center her accusation with, “your boyfriend is a rake and a flam.” That…
|
131189
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Mr. Blumberg and I sat side by side on a small couch in the family room. He was watching a football game on TV.
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131141
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The months leading up to that night were unbearable. It was as if a debt loomed over us begging to be paid. We both knew I would find you dangling at the end of a rope, it was only a matter of when.
|
131196
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I guess at the end you’re only
looking forward. Or upward actually,
since you can only lie there on your back
looking upward, straight ahead toward infinity,
your mouth in a grimace, with the ghostly
pink lips peeled back from the teeth.
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13111412
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She was sick and tired of marriage. She didn't want to be a mother, but now she was.
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