1634 4 0
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The way each intersection in a city where you’ve lived a while becomes layered with personal archeology.
The cafe that replaced a liquor store you avoided, and the friend (or lover) you broke up with there,
and the way on the day of the big fire you
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163400
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"I want more grandchildren to spoil," the woman said. Will took a swig of beer at such moments. Maxine only answered with “someday” and looked over toward her husband. She knew it was his fault, didn’t really know why, but blamed him anyway.
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1634105
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The catchy tune and cloying lyrics/
nonetheless etch their patterns
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163410
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Three teeth. You can pick them out if you hit pause just right. Probably not a person in the entire valley who hasn’t seen that video from the Eastern Cheerleading Finals. They even showed the tape on the eleven o’clock news in Scranton, my face ci
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163477
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I’m decades in and it hasn’t gone away.
In all other respects, I am normal. Life
is hard, but I’m not complaining. The thing
is, I am in a constant state of falling.
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163443
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I still see Big Mama leaning over her garden to pick a zinnia to put in her still life. Her old pink slip, hanging diagonally a foot under her hiked up, ragged, stained dress, half covered by her paint smock, which matched her white, faux fur, bedroom sli
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163431
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The blackout lasted longer than anyone thought. From my fifth story window, the whole city seemed to shut down. I heard noises above me. How could it be?
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163323
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The email landed in his inbox.He'd been staring at the empty screen for a while now even though, really, he hadn't been expecting anything to arrive, yet there it was.He sat and stared, not daring to click it. He knew he shouldn't have sent a mail in the first place. He…
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1633139
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No king of Ithaca, but of each/
whining, banging, dust–clouded island/
of focused, physical work
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163310
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Row,
Caps of white,
A salted escape
beneath reflected light.
Brother, remember those old lies?
I’m off to sea to make those things right,
now.
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163340
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We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously.
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163387
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I imagine you in the States,
pushing stacks of work papers and our memories
to the side, sense your enjoyment that
you won’t see the worry of your
behavior reflected in my eyes again.
That you can buy and bang and be
whomever you want,
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163321
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This was before the cancer, years before. He did this every day: up at five, before Astrid and Max. Four cups of coffee in the machine. A bowl of granola. Five hundred words. Five hundred words no matter goddamn what. Five hundred words on Sunday and Chri
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163353
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Rose lifted her 55-year-old legs until they were perpendicular to the bed and admired how girlish they looked. It gave her the sexy legs of a 20-year old, if the morning light was right and she squinted a bit.
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163341
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On our back porch, the tiki torches are lit and so am I.
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163265
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His looks were polished like his shoes, his hair as black. No one would have guessed he made his living as a thief.
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163200
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"Nothingness had had enough. Nothingness had become militant. It had bought a camouflage jacket. It grew an afro. It burned its bra. Nothingness was pissed, and it wanted its stuff back."
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163230
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The Snowman grinned malevolently as the Sugar Plum fairies shook in their tiny powdered boots."Santa has one more hour and then you're all marshmallow toasts!" the Snowman said. He laughed and he laughed. His evil plan? He wanted the key to time delivered to him personally…
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163200
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A customary phone call from home. What are you doing she says? Playing football I retort – what else. The usual sigh and a faint giggle followed. Much unlike how it backfired back in the late 20’s and we were going to make it the reason to break up! The p
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163254
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we gave divided houses / child stand up anyway
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1632106
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16321410
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A woman posted a story on Fictionaut about discovering that her husband was a werewolf.
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163201
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I followed the curve of the etched Koi, its filigree scales arcing across a taut midriff toward the indent of her pierced navel, where a collection of water lilies drifted on the surface of her skin.
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163243
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Auto and the Grease-Pits
Sugar Cube
Full Frontal
The Holy Grill
Crazy Al and the Squirrels
Talk Is Cheap
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Cold Zippers
Destiny Howl
Epiphany Critter
Cold Kneecaps
Crepes
Pulled Pork
Baby Seals and the Club
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1632158
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She is too stylish to be crazy, is what the migrant probably thinks. And he's right.
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163252
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That contraption he’d invited her to pedal, somebody oughta market one of those. The closer you got the harder it got, and her feet kept slipping off the pedals. It was maddening.
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163200
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We were a perfect match of broken pieces of flesh and cobalt. We moved in waves of couch plastic crinkling and clicking.
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163161
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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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1631103
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Palms planted firmly against his temples, Travis paced the room like a caged animal. Giant black bats screeched in his brain, their pointy wings scraping at the edges of his cranium.
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163132
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"Why, before the summer has passed
You won’t remember her name. . ."
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