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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142110
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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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14211210
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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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142154
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She is alone in the ocean
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142186
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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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142111
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A mundane endeavor depicted as a quest. Try it, you'll like it!
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1421113
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142102
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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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1421108
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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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142163
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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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142122
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The Inauguration Day Windstorm had blown out half the downtown lights to celebrate its twenty-first birthday. Two old friends flecked with gray snow and white hair sat on the boulders that kept the Sound from sweeping away Myrtle Edwards Park. Look at all the…
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142100
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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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142100
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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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142110
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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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142143
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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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142021
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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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142022
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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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142054
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Been looking for guns.
His guns have turned up missing.
He’s been looking for the guns.
Looking for guns.
The au-pair must’ve snuck back in
And took the guns.
And the baby.
The baby must be crawling off with
Guns again.
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1420108
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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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142093
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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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142064
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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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14201310
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This time the bag's bigger/than the boy and the door.
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142021
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He and she are fucking while I watch. She's moaning deep desire and he's pounding flesh into flesh. I'm fully clothed, eyes attune to their fornication, studying. He comes inside of her; their bodies stiffen and then wriggle against one another. …
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142011
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Pen or sword? Pick one/choose your battles carefully/for the paths oppose
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142043
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"You're no good at sex, no good at drugs and, god knows, no good at rock and roll."
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142076
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in a willow garden lush shade/drapes dark the young woman's small house/with the lone window, the white door . . .
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142000
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Every morning when he wakes, he lies in bed and waits for one of his toes to twitch or spasm; the moment he feels one of them thrust forward, he gains courage to test his legs. He grimaces either way: one more day of walking, one more day until loss, one more trip to the…
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142011
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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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142000
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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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141975
|
I learned how to fall in love, in one hour, watching The Waltons. John Boy fell in love with Jenny. Jenny fell in love with John Boy. It taught me the right way to fall in love. It taught me the right way to let love go. I was 12 years old. It was a lesson I…
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