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How To Laugh and Be Happy When Not Drinking

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That is the question, not to be or not to be Life, death, whether to be, all that is superfluous in the face of laughter and how to achieve it under extraordinary circumstances like not drinking anymore I’m afraid not all the alcoh

The Tamarack Swamps

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Last night, in a tavern called Wits End, we dropped quarters into a console, sized and shaped like an old TV.

Still Dancing b/w Smokey Conversation

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an engine stalls out in the parking lot the driver tears her skirt coming through the door

To Zephyrus

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In a field of barley, I see you, ...

Folk Music Returns to Roots, But Some Try to Keep Them Buried

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“Sandy likes the way Bob spanks, when he’s done she gives him thanks."

My Uncle's Last Day in Hospice

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In and out of morphine dreams, he flies through the unfinished roof of Illinois sky. Below, matchbox-sized farm machines. A silo becomes his father's thermos, the silver-capped tower from which he stole sips at ten, his first secret. Back …

Building Houses Out of Words

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I remember sitting there on the first unfinished rooftop, watching you building houses out of words. You hammered in grammar and punctuation; you said these things needed to be hammered in by hand. You drove the long straight exclamation …

The letter.

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I am useless. A freak. Different. They all hate me now. All except you, of course. You will never leave me. Never. I'd kill them all if I could. Every single one. But twenty-four, that's a lot even for me. I'm so sick of the cliques; the special groups and hastily strung…

Table Talk

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Her voice gets screechy as she talks of the boy he was caught fondling in the bathroom of a bowling alley. The worst part: the dumb schmuck doesn’t even bowl.

Pleasure (it was) after all...

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I'm gonna write about this after...It'll either be a tale of pain or pleasure hopefully the latterI don't understand how this workswhy sometimes I want to hide from myself other times I can just give in, fully,and everything isohsoheightenedI want it to be beautifuland…

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

19.

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They made posters and hung them everywhere. With the passing days she became the photograph at its center: hair always in the same ponytail; always with the same smile

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…

My Name is Luka

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The first and easiest reason was that he never hit me. Well, if he never hit me, then how could it possibly be abuse? Never mind the threats to stab me in the neck. He was only angry. He really didn't mean that. Never mind he restrained me, or cornered me

Helpless

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She stiffens and blusters and roars Not like a storm, Not like a lion. Like a badger, caught in the steel jaws of a trap.

Hollywood Sugar

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No pain is private. How can it be?

tiny thoughts

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what if I die?

This Cowgirl's Lament

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A tornado and peacock were bred in his paddock; the couple gave birth to a turquoise lasso.

Annals of the Naked Rowdies #13

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It worked for a short time and their next album, "The Hirsute Agenda" became an underdog success.

A Serial Killer’s First Day in Medical School

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To rival the professor in his knowledge of various body parts is impossible ...

The Rocket

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Mother told me that I would go to the moon. But she did not tell me that on Diwali night, the moon hid himself on the other side of the sky.

1935 What I Wanted

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embarrassment

Blackouts

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The Bird King is trapped behind the mirrors. Sometimes you'll see a hand, a wing, fluttering in a dark space. You may even see his breath, a pulse of mist in a corner of the glass. But don't ever smash his silvered prison. Don't ever let him out and into the world.*****O…

Wings

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He knows I talk to angels, what he would call angels. I don’t talk to him.

The Fourth Prague Defenestration: 20

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The Gropers of Prague were there, all around us, in spirit if not in fact. Was it KGB? Was it a ghost from my past? Or my own hand? Stop guessing. It was Einstein himself. The KGB had taken him into custody somehow, though by what authority? All the

Love's Hinterlands

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Sit down at night and stare into the fire. Consider if Cupid is just another liar.

Sensation

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

Life at the Brew-Ha-Ha Pub

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No matter what you may discover Or come to believe during the drinking life The question still remains: What if everyone was an accident? But still, while time may appear To be nearing its own end And the sun seems to be getting

Elevator to the Angels

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I opened the closet door and there stood Eugène Ionesco lost among our clothes.

The Application of Birds

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I know someone in need of healing.