1294 6 1
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I’m trying to get this said, this piece of fact. If I am a person who can own something, then that something that I own is not me, not me as a person. I do not own my foot, my foot is my own. It’s like a whatsit, a semantic distinction I’m trying to
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129411
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And here I am again.
I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.
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12941613
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One sneaker in the middle of the A-Plus Pawn lot...
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129411
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A famous author and an inspired writer meet at a coffee shop, both looking for inspiration. The patrons there don’t know if this meeting is by accident or design, but they are in awe of Fame.
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129400
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By the time I learned how much I loved my family, I was 3 years and eight-hundred miles away from them
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129443
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I wrote this paragraph (the first in a series of 14 paragraphs) shortly after Frank Sinatra had died and during my last visit to my boyfriend, M. He had not seen me write something in years.
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129410
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My famous ‘Black Feminist Casserole’ was soon renamed ‘34C casserole’.
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12941414
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I realize the kid is still smoking. Shocked, I tear the cigarette from his mouth, throw it to the earth, and grind it to death with the heel of my boot.
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1294146
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There are lines//
across time, beyond the tug/
of elections and fashion,/
beyond the turbulence of history
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1294157
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I fondly remember those warm, weekend evenings at twilight on the beach. After the frolic of the waves flattened, sending the surfers home and, after the last bait was spent, sending the surfcasters away, I'd set up the little, foldable, 3‘x4', rectangular stage I always…
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129441
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You gather their faces in the palms of your hands and their purple eyes blink, blink, unseeing.
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129432
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We love the sparkling, speckless, spotless, spic-n-span, sanitary.
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129411
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On that balcony, on every other day, she practised her other, more worldly religion - gardening, specifically sunflowers.
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129433
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The white Styrofoam box sits on the prep station. It was delivered a few hours earlier. Half awake, I don a black apron and grab a large cutting board. To keep it from slipping, I put the cutting board on a damp towel laid…
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129442
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He picked up a pack of cigarettes and shook it. He flipped the lid to confirm there were none left.
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129412
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she shivered in the ceasefire like a virginal nude brought to life.
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129465
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I was low on carburetor / oxygen and my fraud protection / had just expired.
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129342
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So if we all have an idea what goes down when the young person at the cash register (the registerista?) asks, “Can I help you?” then we all know there’s a different way to habla at Seattle’s gift to the world.
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129332
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I unwrap my #4, the greasy smell wafting over my nostrils, and I pause, with the understanding that this will be the highlight of my day, and that I should savor the moment, and then I bite in.
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129355
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I guess you’re gone now
That’s okay
I guess I can live with my own ghosts
I had no idea
What it meant
But now I do
It meant I was standing
At the end of everything
And did not know it
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129310
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She took a deep breath. Last night, she said, Who was the woman?
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129332
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I cut myself. Often. The bloodslice like thin lips parted/in prayer.
life’s color drained to ashen/as the old world spins, pirouettes/like a circus dog on the back/of a galloping horse.
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129374
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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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129321
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The leaves were meaningless because they were no longer connected to the trees.
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129385
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I dreamt once
a child’s drawing of a house
all scribbly black crayon
swayback roof crooked
chimney. God, do you
remember how cold it was
that night?
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1293127
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129330
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my molars are dancing, tekka-tekking to the strung-out paint can groove of my heart.
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12931915
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"You're publishing too much too / quickly. We think that's unhealthy. We want you / to slow down. You're becoming a fame whore."
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129332
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The most beautiful possible thing is to deprive all places of their meanings.
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129385
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collars of obedience /
discarded in the pyre /
with draft cards and bras
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