1422 0 0
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The first apartment Troy and Lynn lived in was managed by an alcoholic former army officer, who lived in the complex with his wife and teenage daughter. He was a lush who didn't do much in the way of management. Lynn had barely noticed him before Troy moved in with her.…
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1422 5 1
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A dead deer on the side of the road and the older boys not listening to her as they stab its eye with a stick.
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1422 4 4
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Have you ever seen anyone die? It will alter your life. Because you suddenly realize that anxiety was worth something after all, and was a coin of the human condition, imprinted with hectic symbols, some of which resemble cypress, others more like Frankenstein:…
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1422 2 1
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His touch, even now, seemed to set off tremors inside her.
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1422 5 4
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when i was five or six/ we lived in an apartment/ and every sunday/ i'd lie on the carpet/ to watch squares of sunshine/ crawl across the rug/ while my mother inflicted upon us/ a centuries-long hour of television/ worse than any droning mass.
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1421 1 0
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On Friday evenings they play Scrabble, a whole crowd of them. They use books to keep score, page numbers, instead of a long column of pencil scratches. They organize themselves into teams; the English majors all together, versus biology, history and horn players. She and he…
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1421 12 10
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A man of action would take to his rake/
but Sloth would rather watch and wait/
for snow to erase each leaf on leaf.
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1421 10 8
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One day, my feet and hands got into an argument. My feet argued that they were superior because they were not only the foundation of my body, but the cause of its mobility. They were modest in size, yet supported and transported an entire body that towered over them.…
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1421 5 4
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She is alone in the ocean
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1421 8 6
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At some point we all reach the end point/
of something. Something important/
if only to our fragile self esteem.
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1421 11 3
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1421 0 2
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We’d told her that Kasey waitressed. We talked about it a lot, trying to figure something out. I wanted to be honest with her. Kasey said she was too young to understand. I said that was why honesty wouldn’t hurt anything. Kasey said what about later.
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1421 10 8
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The first night I met her we slow danced to George Strait songs for most of the evening and when we took a break, our talking went warm and well as we sat eating hot dogs and sipping beers until she dropped a couple of bombs, first, telling me she was married and then, that…
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1421 6 3
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My father seems anxious about my gender orientation. I grew up looking like a boy, acting like a boy. He bought dresses and girly stuff for me but he avoided making an issue of it until recently.
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1421 6 4
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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.
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1421 13 10
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This time the bag's bigger/than the boy and the door.
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1421 1 1
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Pen or sword? Pick one/choose your battles carefully/for the paths oppose
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1421 1 1
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I knew we were going to fail. The night we met, when we got out of the car, I dropped my green glove in that puddle, you picked it up but it was ruined. That set the precedent for our whole life together. You can't look at me anymore. My cigarette…
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1421 0 0
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To a tech-savvy millennial, the definition of progress is a hands-free blowjob, and the real number is not how many men you’ve been with but how many minutes you’ve made them wait.
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1421 1 0
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I leapt up to retaliate when the clang of a distant door quieted my retesance. Shit, why am I so popular? I guess it was my turn to be thrown around like the guy in the Hotdog suit on the corner... Don't shoot the "Hotdog" guy... Please, please don't
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1421 4 3
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In the end nothing could bring him back because I tried. All those weeks and months, yet all I have left are the tears and memories. He said when he asked the final questions to those in charge he was confused.
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1421 0 0
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Osama couldn’t see any reason he shouldn’t retire. No way he could top BP Oil in the Gulf or Pacific Gas & Electric in San Bruno.
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1420 2 1
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"Haven't you ever had some little thing you would rather everyone just left you alone about? I don't like to have my picture taken. Please don't ask me again."
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1420 0 0
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What do I understand?
What have I mastered or come to terms with?
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1420 2 2
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You have such a complicated mind /
for refusing to believe in God /
just like any damned liberal /
whose fingerprints /
crowd the faces of a thousand /
dollar bills /
being passed around your great nation...
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1420 11 5
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The smell of garlic, soy, and onions/
exhausted from Skillman Wok/
perfumes December air.
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1420 5 3
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We entered the castle at dawn. The dim light feebly illumined an array of antiques and medieval weapons. Bats dangled from the high vaulted ceiling, enfolded in membranous wings. What were once chandeliers radiating light were encrusted with webs and the ancient wax…
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1420 9 3
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Remembering his body makes me think of Egyptian cotton sheets dried in the sun. He smelled crisp and clean even after sweating hard. His hair fell in golden spirals down his cheeks, his back, over his forehead, and captured light just like the gilded halos on…
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1420 7 6
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Maybe it was a trick of the gloom.
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1420 8 6
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I'm working through the rocky pine cones so you don't have to. I'm stepping over the little dreaming people in your dreams so we don't wake them with our loud and coming loose footprints. The poem passes by like a heartbreaking train…
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