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Road to Nowhere

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I could smell a bold combination of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and sex excreting from her weathered pores. The bus engine hummed as we climbed a winding road. She scratched her neck and tried to finger comb through her knotted hair. I caught a glimpse of

Lovely

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I would open an eye, waiting for it to absorb the scant light in the room, and I would see her on the far edge of the bed, the topography of her hips now a battlement to keep me at bay.

The River of the Parched Spirit

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anxiety said Kierkegaard is the dizziness of freedom

The Creative Use of Meal Time

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We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously.

Bestiary

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A woman posted a story on Fictionaut about discovering that her husband was a werewolf.

Sounds like leaving

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chains across all the old doors

When Spectacle Replaces Ritual,

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The aisle, nave and/ transept twist themselves/ into an auditorium.

to a gregarious stranger

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Three lines.

Thing To Do In Deptford When You're Dead.

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Velvet answered the door in a red leather dress that was made with just about enough material to make a wallet, and looking like a long limbed drink of water calling out to a thirsty man.

Corkscrewing.

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[SOME PEOPLE ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS.]

Okay

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I supposed reluctantly that Princeton is soft as Macalester College is soft. A person could die just for having attended U.W.-Madison or Yale.

What People Do With Their Hands

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I said, “If this rose doesn't grow another petal in twenty minutes, I'm burning down the neighborhood.” “Just let it go,” said Paul. “No,” I said. “That's what's happening right here.” “You'll try again next…

The Gift

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Margie sprayed the gift with her most expensive perfume and tucked it into her sweater’s front pocket. This way she could hold it close to her on the subway, so no one would see the pretty wrapping and try to snatch it from her

Calling All Feathers, Do You Hear

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These little things, they are the hopes We were waiting for, they are everywhere. I made this one just for you. Call them feathers. Call them roses. You'll always See them if you need them. These Little things carry the good news…

The Dock

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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.

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

maybe just a little too sensitive

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"do you know what your problem is when it comes to girls?" she must mean other than the fact that they're all completely insane. or at least all the ones i've dated.

Deadheading

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No matter how much he composes and prepares, he cannot override the electrical trigger in his brain. Something to do with the resonance of physical memory. It remembers amplitudes of current.

Morphine

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Until the ivy hides me in

The Code of Hammurabi

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We pull up chairs. I breathe in her Bath and Body Works vanilla, read her paper slowly and aloud because the ears catch what the eyes miss. Her sentences are awkward, stilted.

Phenomenology- Short Stack

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The fly comes in against my will/ and hers. She would prefer/ the wider world with its piles of shit

The Ogontz Branch

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There are stories I will not tell, stories I shudder / to remember. You'll forgive me for withholding them from you. / You may, of course, not tell me everything about yourself either

The Trapper Boy at Work, One Mile Underground

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The coal carts come and go like the seasons, never stopping.

Painting with Big Mama

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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

Call the Cultbusters!

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My twin sister Ilene has recently taken up with a man named “Darrell,” who is a member of the Shriner's Fun Korps, a motorized paramilitary group.

Wintering

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Winter makes me reconsider.

TRAUMA

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Everybody breaks. Everything splinters.

Ladybird

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On the other pillow is a ladybird which escaped from a dream. It reminds me of when I was a tiny red polka dot. And then bigger, and other colours. And then… I stare at the ceiling, searching its soul for little things. The ladybird touches my arm, whispers…

The Ice Cream Mantra

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Chant the ice cream mantra. Prance the do dah day ballet. Trot the t-bone tango two-step. Dance the livelong day away.

The Interview

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What follows is an interview George Bush gave to Barbara Walters in 2006. He came off like something out of a swamp. Dick Cheney made them deep-six the tapes and we never saw it on prime time. I got the transcript, however,…