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The Exhaustion of Dreams

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I like it best when I wake up And the wild rain of dreaming ends.

To Whom It May Concern:

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Now, we can argue about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but there is no doubt that it takes eight spritzes of Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner, three spritzes of Lime-Away, and then a 30 second spray of Oust to incapacitat

Amanda Palmer

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Amanda Palmer's explaining the eyebrow thing. An altercation with someone at Roadrunner, or maybe old boyfriend shit to burn— She's animated but he's losing signal, filling in the blanks himself. Whatever, it won't light at first, and then WHUMP and she…

Her Man in the Navy Blues

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In that time when the trunk was getting cleared out and when it became only the empty shell of what had once been so important, many things hit the match. She burned an old black negligee, a picture competing with the likes of a Vargas girl and other thin

Oyster

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"Maybe…" he began searching for some comforting wisdom. "Maybe it's like this. Husbands live for their wives. Mothers live for their children. And children...well...until they're husbands or wives, they live for themselves."

Amateur Theory of the Universe

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this could be true

Cancer Always Calls Collect -- Part 23 --- Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

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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.

Something Going Down, Like a Branch Snapped by Wind

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This is 57% of middle America, I'm convinced: doomed.

Sold 2 Books Though

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Reading at Menlo Park Senior Center, old people falling asleep leaning to the left in their chairs, all in the same direction.

Wild Origin

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Seeking your will, instead we found, somehow, a clutch of our own documents; folded under a rubber band gone to rot, muddy strands nestled in the creases.

Purpose

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I gave you two daughters. I gave you four grandchildren. I'm done.

The Light In My Arms

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I asked him his name and here’s the kicker, Leiby. It means lion. You know what? I said mine is Levi, how do you do. That means to accompany—like in the root of the word, it’s got that meaning. As in levayah, funeral in Hebrew. Does that only

Countdown

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My bones will rob me blind, corpuscle by corpuscle.

Old Friends Getting Older

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I just amuse myself by buying old guns and refurbishing them in my basement as I listen to old Bohemian polkas on cassettes.

Urgencies

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...it was moving toward me from an oblique angle somewhere behind, steadily, relentlessly.

One Kiss

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"It was one kiss. No tongue. What does that even mean?" Lindley tried to see Leah as any other patient, "What do you want it to mean?" "I don't know," Leah whined, tears welling, "something, maybe. You know I hate surprises." Her sister was not another…

A taste of competition

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We called him Mickey Habanero, because he could fill his mouth with the hottest food imaginable, the kind packed with the sort of heat that would melt the gums from the teeth of a novice, all without taking a drink of milk or anything else that would otherwise soothe the…

Sad without Tears

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Sometimes, to be sad, you don't need tears.

The Neighbors

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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.…

Contained

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You’re listening to Smooth FM, taking you from the darkest hours to the start of a brand new day.

The Morning

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Early in the morning I wanted to send you something for when you wake;

Saturday Birthdays (from FATHER MUST)

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When his mother was all dressed up on New Year’s Eve, and his father, even thought they had tickets for the dance, announced to her he wasn’t going to go, Johnny had gone into his room, put on a white shirt, a dark suit, his dress shoes, and a clip-o

All his things

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All the things that are his.

The Road

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we were traveling on wasn't necessarily going to go careening over any hill as fast as it was smashing into the blunt end of another cloudless hole like a cartoon cat chasing a cartoon mouse. It was huge like a stone wall that had its own…

We of the Paper-doll Brigade Are Not Hiding Our True Selves Anymore, A FaceBook Flash

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I am confused by your new paper-doll look, btw. Could you please look regular again by Thursday?

The Old Man and the Cigarette

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Flicking the cigarette into the river the man's face becomes soft, as if waving goodbye to the only real attachment that he has felt in decades.

Melons

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A baseball bat a large pipe a hammer and axe

1980, What I Wanted

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Not to...Witness such sufferingWatch as a life fades awayReceive the callAttend this funeralBe surrounded by well meaning family and friendsStand by helplessly as my father sobs in his brother's armsNotice the pain settle in my brother's eyesSee my grandparents' tortured,…

Terry, the Diamond-Eyed Barber

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No matter how bad his hair turned out or how avocado shaped one of those miscreants could make his head look, he would remain silent.

My Melody

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This is my melody. I will not shut it down for you, it will do all that on its own time. Everyone knows this. I don't need you to go on holiday. Can't really get away from yourself. This is my color guard. It goes with the everything I am. I'm not sorry I…