1421 2 0
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Some people hate Waikiki. Not me. Most hotels had lounges with live music, either inside or around the pool. Evenings were spent bar hopping up and down the strip, Kalakaua Avenue. The bars stayed open till 4:00 a.m. It was safe to walk…
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1421 3 3
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I contemplate the words that did not make it; the lost ones. The words deprived of their moment in the sun. These words. These words that are not part of the story.
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1421 8 5
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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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1421 4 4
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Francesca is a sweet girl and everything, but her incessant doting on Paolo is best left private . . .
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1421 18 11
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For a few/
vivid weeks, deciduous shrubs and trees/
will seem to glow like flames and embers
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1421 6 6
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some days are
minotaur shit on your tongue/
smokestacks dumping acid rain on your already thinning hair
your eyelashes pinned in upside down, backward/you give wrong shaving directions to the mirror
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1421 3 2
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Instead, I get things like,
“Why can’t you find a nice man with cancer or a bum leg?”
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1421 16 10
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They teach that emotional pain is physical pain, culture pain is science pain, but they cannot test for the absence of these synaptic conclusions. I will say, if you can test me and find something missing then you can supplement me for the missing thing.
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1421 10 9
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He just up and dropped dead one day, Charles said. Pretty tough on Karen, I opined. Charles looked the other way.
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1421 6 5
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Infinity occurs as an afterthought, for discoverers like Columbus as for countries like America.
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1421 15 13
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I asked the hospice nurse about maggots.
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1420 2 1
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The elders of the town will tell you that as soon the prophet mill arrived everything went to Hell. Before the process was streamlined, prophets used to be grown organically in the community. They popped up only where the ground was tilled and a prayer was planted. They…
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1420 10 3
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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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1420 15 11
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The universe will fuck you over in the end./
That’s what it does, what it’s good at—
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1420 4 1
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At a rest stop in Montpelier, they stopped to buy Cokes and gum from the vending machines. He was showing off, trying to jimmy one of the locks with a safety pin but it stayed locked and she laughed at him and he said goddamn, look at all a them Milkyways
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1420 2 1
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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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1420 20 14
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I become the accumulation/
of appetites
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1420 8 5
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—Mazel tov, schmazel tov!
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1420 1 1
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But Jake doesn't hear anything. He is pure, unfiltered, liquid rage. Jake kicks Rolex dude once, twice, five times in the ribs. On the last kick, there is a snapping sound.
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1420 8 6
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You left for the glittery wild of West Hollywood. I guess L.A.'s off-limits now. My heart goes fucking tachy when I drive over Kellogg Hill past Forest Lawn and see the skyline glowing through the rainbow haze of sunset. You're out there, out in the…
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1420 3 2
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When we arriveand are met by strange friendsstrange like the fog on the redreed mudflatsthat span the low tide around Incheon -When we arrivecarrying so much we will not needlike the bus they hire to take us through the darksix people to fill so much more space - When…
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1420 7 4
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Once again there's too much to handle and
no space to process
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1420 8 7
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in their hunt for desires not felt on either side of the crescent /
called Gowanus
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1420 5 3
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under your skin the moon is alive
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1420 10 8
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1420 4 4
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We ask was that me? The one on the corner with his hat tipped to the jaunty side? I've wore hats, I've stood on corners. Am I not jaunty?
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1420 11 4
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The flash of love was real, the life within her was real, and the main thing now was to climb.
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1420 11 3
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Ego bereft of consistency Betrays a heart hungering to toll. Unable to trust its will Or harbor imaginary gods, It gains a hold melding into a role whose proven viability Can give convincing cover To buy time to fabricate An identity that feels unique, Yet…
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1420 6 1
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When the sex that is new and promising in its awkward moments is over, you turn to him. You expect that he’s figuring out a way to leave; the parts of you that know wait for him to stand up and put his clothes back on, quicker and with more eagerness than
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1420 17 9
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Words darken with smut and irony over time.
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