1600 8 7
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You are an heiress to drunks.
The statues of your forefathers stagger,
memorialized by gravity, their faces
half-lit eternally, as they reach into refrigerators
for another something
to keep away the cold empty.
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160052
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You stand in the mirror. You see yourself. You stand sideways; your profile is always your best. You tuck in your stomach, you stick out your ass but it's the same. You stand face front. You shiver. The mirror adds weight to your already sagging breasts, the wrinkles…
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160033
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You compare the brightly-colored wires sprouting from the bandage wrapped around your stepson's head to a bouquet of flowers. The tech sits in a chair next to Brett's hospital bed and holds up line drawings of common objects: cats, boats, skyscrapers,…
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160000
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That old woman's got to be senile or something. The other day she asked my daughter if I had a "thing about water." Sharon told her I didn't, but then came right in and asked me, "Mother, you got a thing about water?"
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16001011
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She left knives and hot pots with handles akimbo. Like a guardian angel, he turned them in. Like an ungrateful Eve, she turned them back out.
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1600104
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I hold them to the light...
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1600149
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the wind mistook your arms for wings
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160062
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Living lower on the hog than anticipated
lower on the hog than previously expected
lower on the hog than desired
Living on the underside of the hog belly
pretty much bouncing on the ground
beneath the aforementioned hog belly
Living clos
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160020
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And now, the weather. The Cloud Wranglers have roped three solid clouds this morning, preventing the clouds from raining iron bars onto Human Brain Storage Center #17.
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160000
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The door shuts slowly to something that’s allegedly mine
and it sits there and waits until I come home
just like you.
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160031
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Warning: Open and read before making any dumb-ass New Year's resolutions.
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160043
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Many years ago I visited a nude beach. I undressed at the car and walked with my companions onto a California beach as naked as the day we were born.
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160054
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But I don't see the cabinets, or know how to put the 4 chapters he's talking about today into the drawers that are invisible, floating, above his bed he's been in for a year, me sitting next to him, becoming a spinster.
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160074
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We are all in big trouble. Here's some fiction to let your soul experience the beast.
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159921
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Thirty years later – and all the years in between – Alan Walton would remember how insidious it was, the anger that started that night with Quinton Harris, fifteen years old and the undisputed leader of the troop, and spread like a virus to the other boys
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159963
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My poems have appeared in four different publications; three have died shortly after they ran my stuff. Coincidence, or something more sinister?
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159987
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The first thing I saw was a sandal, but it didn't exactly look priestly. It was golden and glowing, and the foot it was strapped to had red painted nails. The straps wrapped around her ankles, and up her slender leg, tied off in a bow below the knee.
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159965
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This writers' conference (sponsored by VQR, which had run its banner ad atop the Fictionaut home page in the summer of 2014, which begins to explain both my attendance and this essay) revealed itself as an apt subject . . .
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159900
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A woman is fishing in the Seine at the far left
of the painting, while time is suspended and light
remains. One man plays a trumpet. A half dozen
people sit or walk under parasols. Couples stroll
and children run or sit or stand beside their
p
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159962
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159953
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“There’s no real freedom in this world. But a car and the open road is close enough for government work.”
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159984
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I remember having a beer once
And feeling like a minor god
And I know in some lie you told
Your life began making sense
And I also know that the mind likes logic
But the heart loves chaos
I just hope flies land on the butter of your soul
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159994
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William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)
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159940
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A short triangular plastic shovels into the/White plastic container filled with topaz crystal-like/Salt granulars. Scratchy sandy sounds echo.
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159943
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159800
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I catch a glimpse of myself in the small mirror on the adjacent wall and find myself becoming shy at my own reflection, which is ludicrous in theory, shying away from oneself, but as I lock onto the few freckles I have spread neatly on both cheeks...
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159882
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Marge bought the rug on-line.
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159811
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Each step you take on the pitchEach mile driven downEach closed exit of highway Blocked avenues of importanceBoarded up HammeredNailed shutPeople and places and things You can't get to anymoreThe knife and the needle The black and the…
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159831
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"I have a prehensile tongue," he said matter-of-factly. "I know how to make you feel good." Such confidence, I say. Prove it.We're sitting on the couch, watching a movie, but not paying attention to it. We sit side-by-side, my leaning into him, and his arm is around me,…
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1598106
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Eight days before her 50th birthday they were married in their soft new pajamas, holding hands on his bed in the hospital. The pastor and witnesses wore protective hospital gowns and gloves; the patient was in isolation once again. A special dispensation from the head…
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