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Possum

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A possum sits on a fence. The fence is downtown in a not-very-big town. Hard to say about possums and fences; this is not the first possum to sit on a fence. Once, during a suburban backyard party a possum sat on a fence and observed. Before long he could walk more…

The Bird King's Eggs

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1The Bird King's eggs are subatomic particles created serendipitously by a sneeze in a quantum physicist's dream.Occupying a space between existence and nothingness, reason and madness, broccoli and…

Our Previous Lives - song

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When I arrived in heaven Calling out your name Running just on vapor Leaving my old flames I thought I saw you singing Dripping from all sides Crying like a rainbow Reliving our old lives

The Birth Canal Was Easy

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It was time.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 12

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Ellen and I stepped out into the hall to discuss the situation. Maybe we should make some sort of offer to purchase these paintings, because if it did turn out that they were for real, well, the value could be endless. Think of it. Vladimir Lenin, the pai

Wisdom the Hard Way

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Loaded on acid, Billy blatzed into a 7-11, holding his dick like he hoped the store guy would think the thing was an Uzi. The guy laughed and pulled out a .38 Special and the cops carted Billy to jail. …

When The Conversation Ends

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It was a strange mood, unfamiliar, not one of her usual “I'm busy wrestling with my personal demons” type of moods. She'd been steeped in it all day and I, like a shipwrecked victim reaching out for any piece of flotsam…

Unspoken

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I'm waiting for your voice. My trembling hand is so damp the phone could slip from my fragile grasp at any moment. Each ring burns in my ear and makes the washing machine in my stomach tumble faster and faster. After three rings, or it could be four, or forty, I hear…

Kitchen Fruit Fly Suicides

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How the hell do these 1/8 inch long red-eyed flying insects wind up in my kitchen anyway?

Abraham

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I came late to sunrise. The hills were lit / with goats.

Ignorance

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On the street / The protesters stand / Yelling words empty as wind

Vitamin D

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I caught her a-feasting with her eyes and smilin' at that Jesus- haired Waffle House cook, Dennis Roy, again and I said, “Merlene, my tiny kitty-kat, they's no reason to carry no torch for him ‘cause he may not be with us very long ‘cause, if you notice, they's no…

Haiku Life

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A funny thing this life

White Room

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A white room is empty but for you, a card table and a chair.

13. spring makeout haiku

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tangerine mouthfeel

77 Words Sparked by Insomnia

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Mice dreams are a reality ...

The Nude Pianist: A Novel: Chapter 25

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It was 6 a.m. when the phone next to the bed awakened Francesco.

There's A Place I Know

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“Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water."- W.C. Fields Around the next corner is a dark green door a dark…

Boats for Rent (Thinking About You)

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We're killing off the elephants. We're killing off the tigers. We're killing off monarch butterflies. We're wrecking the coral reefs. Big sad gorillas don't feel at home in their own homes. And all instead of learning to live in some…

A Leaf For Instance is Only a Green Enough Calling Card(A Valentine)for Someone if You Care to Mail It

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Because you alone must know how to make a smile shine at me and be like the sun, I can only feel its warm and coolish colors becoming that perfectly deepened yellow then on to the red if you please that makes a shy kind of blue out of day. That…

Death of an Eikaiwa

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When I rolled him under the bed, I thought I would sweep him out later with arms curled up like legs beneath the shells of cicadas I used to gather from the laundry porch and set on the kitchen counter to scare my roommates. At least, I did that until…

Harbinger

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Smoke from the oil lamp traced the wall. It gave Nana something to read.

Because

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He spoke the "Why" and it stuck out its tail. He tripped and fell with his face wedged between the W. She kept the answer in her chest so the words wouldn't crowd him where he lay. The "Why" found its way back into his cheeks and puffed his face out like a disease. He…

Postcard from Shambhala

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Dearest Z— There is no way to describe this place. It is a pendulum, caught at mid-swing or maybe just a millimeter on the up side. It is a sense of sweeping, a cleanness. Distant clouds remind me of the day we took the train and the mountains acted petulantly,…

falling, endlessly

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Clouds quickly appeared, in a perfect peach sky. Big, puffy clouds, moving together, formed the shape of a heart.

Fictionaut or Not? Write On.

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Okay, I'm here; I'm participating. Enjoying the back & forth with other writers. Waiting for penises and fetuses to move down the "Most Recent" list, but working around them. Well, that's kind of unintentionally visual.This essay, like many other reads on here, is…

Trio Anomie

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We deny one another, here,/ as long as it’s plausible.

Lost Splendors

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“I have a theory,” she said on their first date, which was at an Indian restaurant where the music was a lovely singsong but the chef seemed enraged as he clapped a ball of dough between his hands, then threw it into the flames. And her date, whom she…

Christmas Email from an Aging Wicked Stepmother

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Your stepsisters send their love. All three are still on the wagon.

A Thousand Miles Away

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In the house by a kidney-shaped lake, her grandfather was speaking to a stranger about a foreign war that had never ended, had spread close to home.