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Mutterings

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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?"

In Distress

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When a multinational big box furniture store opened just off the expressway outside the city selling all the same products at greatly reduced prices, they contemplated the possibility of closing their store.

When I Grow Up; Or, Why Teenagers Shouldn't Listen to Angst-Rock

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rockstar, moviestar, literary supernova – burning out before all the planets are declassified.

Arcana Magi Zero + Pure - c.1

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A Nocturne, whose grey mana seeped out of it mouth, grabbed the roof of the building with its large claws. Using it as leverage, it stood itself up, hunched over, its long whale like head roared like a loud horn.

It Isn’t Personal. It’s Business

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because you pay/ for it to matter to me.

White Room Trials

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November 24th-- Subject began to chew the flesh of his forearms. Researchers considered interfering but decided against it because subject was only bleeding slightly.

Rolls

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Nothing is ever hoarded in our house, everything is eaten.

Amends '82: Part Two

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Bobby took one out and looked at the date. "July 1965. Does that mean anything to you, Ma? Carla, T.J.?" Bobby handed the paper to my mother. "Why don't you spread it out on the counter to see if you can find something that he might have wanted…

The Painter, the Actor, the Piano Player

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1.As fast as that I wake to astonishing desire. I'd met you at my parents' house just the weekend before but for them (them the drained students trying to relax, refill before their afternoon sessions) you are the stranger in the room,…

Accidental Discoveries

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They look like giant golden raindrops, or flying saucers, or peculiar fish out of their element

The Facts of This Life as Its End Approaches

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The knees remind you: you are old,/ and broken, and unlikely to improve

People Who Go to Poems for Truth

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People Who Go to Poems for Truth

Five Million Yen: Chapter 43

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Ben was in no mood for games. His ribs hurt and his eye was painful. He would have to tell this girl, who had flicked her tongue in his ear and who did not sound like Sophie, to get lost

Chicken Noodle

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Damn this airplane

Drug Series # 19: Heroin

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Billie Holiday and I want a cup of coffee and they tell us to go fuck ourselves.

I Was a Cat Once

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This is a 50-word story.

Wounded Animal Songbook

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I pull into the parking lot and see a group of roosters squawking and trying to overturn an ‘87 Pontiac Bonneville that's caught fire. They're pouring whiskey down their throats. They're weeping over a bag of economy sized frozen breast fillets.

The Street Singer

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The Street singer gathers up his coins and counts to a hundred before The last string stops vibrating

Exit 30

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They meant no harm when they flooded farms in its swirls and eddies

Black Ribbon

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The highway stretches out in front of me, a black ribbon winding into the future; a collapsing probability of possibility connecting me with the past and through it to the future.

Grace

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The instant you remember gratitude with enough focus to spring free its power...

Too Weak for the World

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There was a certain romanticism in it, the salty old man sidling up to me at a bar, rhapsodizing in a slurred stream of conscious about the state of the world, the country, the state of his own heart. He didn't have an eye patch nor beard, nor was he…

Letters to Conrad

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Dear Conrad, If you cannot control your dog’s barking I’ll rig up a loud speaker facing the general direction of your house, and every time your mutt starts howling at the moon, I’ll start playing “It’s a Small World (After All)” at top volume on the p

Shadow Play

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I read it all wrong. In writing her novel, I thought Marilynne Robinson was writing about twins — writing, in some way, about me. Instead, these characters, Lucille and Ruthie, were standard sisters, one older than the other. In fact, Robinson explains th

The Seduction

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You beckon me with an aperitif. The Kir Royal tingles, its bubbles tickling my nose. Its subtle black courant pulls me into your smile. I drink from your lips the champagne-tingle of your kiss.

Only Temporary

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It was the middle of May when I found out my teacher was screwing my mother.

Real Heart

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A heart which is alive despite everything in the world that wants to deaden it.

It's Next Door

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The old lady from next door had been really quiet for the last few days.

Boys

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He came to a spot on the edge of the strawberry fields where he liked to sit with his brother and watch the turkey buzzards circle overhead

Assiduity Three

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Everybody needs a flaw or two. It builds character.