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three gretchens

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The story of a second, a stone, and an android -- all curiously interrelated and all, coincidentally, named Gretchen

The Sound Of...

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What if Everything I have been doing Hasn’t been heard By anyone?

Snow

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She talks about window treatments, how the place is maybe too much for one. Wants me to know she’s not much of a cook, and wants me to smell what’s in her oven and compliment her cooking anyway.

Water Hitting Water.

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Jenny was certain nobody saw her when she took the slinky shirt from her father's store. It was blue with buttons shaped like cherries, the fabric light as air. She balled it up in her hand. Her father owned a chain of boutiques called Body Electric. The racks were…

Lovelandtown Tavern

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James Hubert III sat at the bar. It was late. His wife and kids were long in bed and he knew he should be, too. But with the Lovelandtown lift bridge stuck in mid-air, a drink beckoned him. He sat next to Vince DeSantos, a small, stout man, with a bowling

How to Stop Doing and Be

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Monday will come soon enough to get/ what needs to be done, done.

Unsent

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this is where we end -- the exorbitant eye of forgotten days.

Convenience Store

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I’m casing the place; my boyfriend Jimmy is about to bust in and rob the store.

The Gallery of Wounds

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The blood is memorable/ as is the copper taste of that/ momentary certainty of lockjaw.

M+3

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In the diffuse light of early morning you wear a sweat suit maybe and stand in front of a model-kitchen counter in a model-home kitchen

Blind date

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“I'll have the Ribeye cooked medium rare,” says Bill, who looks over at Julia, blonde hair and disarming smile, and he thinks that she's not bad for a blind date. He doesn't like the way she butters her roll, however, and it agitates him that she spreads…

Bag

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No chance for Hallo, we sank into an unlit station doorway and he fumbled through my shorts.

How To Find A Galaxy In The Dark

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I don't know what I'd expected from the week of mourning after my mother died but I sure hadn't pictured this marathon cocktail party. Our house is packed with people, food, booze and borrowed chairs. People I haven't seen in years keep turning up with casseroles.I'm…

Laughing All The Way To The 2020 Election

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After President Trump was elected, my first impulse was to spend the next four years cowering under the bed, whimpering.While I knew that I needed to keep track of what our new commander in chief was up to, watching the news made me too angry and too sad and just too…

Secrets of Philadelphia

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Bruce Springsteen begins singing from the loud speaker he was bruised and battered and couldn’t tell what he felt.

Ritual

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The dance draws deeper whirling witches weaving rhymes The fire spits fierce in the falling rain soon the spell will spill from secret times

Tongues

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I feel his hand on my face, feel it brush past my lips, and I taste my sister's blood.

This Can't Be True, But I Remember It

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She calls me by my name. She says I am her daughter.

So Twinkle Made Lemonade

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“Just how many different animals try to hide their nakedness?” “Only one. And that'd be us, idiot.”, Twinkle responded. “Then, why don't we mind sometimes showing our bodies?”, she then asked. Twinkle could see it was going to be another…

What I Learned From Magazines This Week

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In his heyday, Burt Reynolds owned $100,000 worth of custom-made toupees.

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,…

~with every breath~

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she goes jogging with the feet of an angel the sound of crunching leaves like wrapping paper torn open to reveal an expensive doll and the light in her mother's eyes.

Triolet

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the magic is our making

Settled

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Zusman snored on the sofa as Motel gathered his belongings in the dark. He moved quietly as had become his custom in the mornings. Initially he had tried not to wake his nephew on his way to work in the…

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 10

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But the restaurants put pig in every little dish. You couldn't eat there without encountering some portion of pig. It was in everything, including the cabbage. Who puts pig in the cabbage? I'm asking you. And in the dumplings too. For God's sake, give it

Neediness, Incarnate

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7 — IT'S HARD TO HAVE FRIENDS WHEN YOU'VE NEVER HAD ANY AND ARE STILL FUCKING WHINING ABOUT IT — Once he learned he didn't “bring anything to the table,” Worthless Veikass hit on the notion of [...]

You'll Never Get Anything Accomplished on an Empty Stomach

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The Star Trek marathon ends, and he flips channels. An episode of Full House is on. The cheesy plot lines and attractive women (specifically, DJ Tanner in the late seasons) have become a freakish comfort. In today's episode, the Tanners are baby sitt

Sort of Like Bukowski, But Completely Oblivious

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My eyes don’t close but hers are shut tight, and something inside tells me that to this girl, I could be absolutely anyone.

Frothing At the Fountain

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When I came back from California the second time, in the summer of 1965, I was the first around our town to wear my hair long, influenced by the Beatles. And I bought a bunch of blue caps that everyone in our gang wore, with the number “69” sown on

Sensation

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She could see him doing these things but she could not hear him.