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crave

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The look that warms.

Flash Before Your Eyes

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It was the dead of winter. I took my father's shotgun from his closet. He kept it wrapped up in one of those khaki-colored gun tote bags that had a zipper running the whole length of the gun. It was a 16-gauge, single action shotgun. Anyone could tell wha

Snack

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Kerryn saved us from ourselves really. Would you be reading this had she eaten it?

The First Time

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The summer I turned fourteen I had a job babysitting our neighbor, Pam's three year old daughter, Annie, three nights a week while Pam was going to Junior College, but it was hardly work because, after I tucked Annie in to sleep, I just watched TV, sitting in Pam's den…

The Watchers

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Up at the top, a quarter mile south, billows of black smoke crawled up the faint blue of the sky.

the heart would have unnatural reverence

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The heart would have unnatural reverence, exalted, bursting with evil, rolling in sloth, if it did not at once reveal its innocence. I saw you again, on the morning of the sun. It was you, or your double, or a son you might have had. Your beautiful bloo

children

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today on the bus/ a man in his fifties/ smiled at a baby/

Things of Beauty

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The cover features Lincoln as a woman. Lincoln as a woman is not a thing of beauty.

Secure

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This is the Minuteman tine/ of the three-tined fork// we can stick into the modern world/ when it’s done-- a MAD triad.

The Window (Part II)

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When we saw the window, we were impressed. It was so clean and transparent that it reminded us of a new pair of glasses, everything so crisp and clear through it. It looked on to nothing. Actually it looked on to the refridgerators and a few stoves, though most of the…

M. Nerveux Chronicles: Toad Suffers a Bad Business

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Herr Toad smokin'

Conversations with my brother

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Maybe it takes as much fortitude To forget As it does To remember.

Prelude to Pain

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Grayson Warren is living the American Dream: a 15-year career as a city cop, a great wife and two kids. And then one day his dream turns into a nightmare.

The Boot

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my crotch-heavy press of 'Yes.'

OUT ON THE EDGE OF VICTORIAN CIVILIZATION

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Lottie was a slim, fine looking woman. But Dale thought her breast implants were the worst case of overkill he had ever seen.

As the Bat Cave Turns

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A study found that in bat species noted for female monogamy male bats have small testes and big brains, while in species noted for female promiscuity males have testicles five times as big, but smaller brains.

Death Along the Jersey Rails

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like old discarded snake skin, dry and coarse after the bite... immortally tortured by broken glass bottles.

Dinner with Someone Who Fucks Someone Else

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say no / to me / and devastate me / and I will take it / as god's will / to drown me / in a vat / of my own / entrails

Betrayal

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My brother Herb married his high school sweetheart right after completing college. This was a girl named Beryl, whom he'd met originally in Mr. Reinert's marching band at York High School in Elmhurst. I remember one day in particular in the middle of the

Dancing With the Monster

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It comes to me at night, the monster. I don't even realize it's in the room until I hear it breathing behind me. It reaches out its hands and places them on my shoulders. Its fingers are furry and soft, but strong. They grasp the muscles on either side of my neck, and I…

it

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where will we be/ when it happens?

Caliban's Dream

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Today I’m feeling crabby and haggard and technology makes it easy to get to the point.

Freedom

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She tossed the big bird into the air. It wobbled, then flew away.

missing item #7

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in her bedroom, opening night of his solo show she is snapping her nylons to center the seam stretching from her toes to where the line disappears into the hem of her dress.

Rock and Sushi

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If I remember him at all it’s because I decided not to flunk him so he could graduate. I had this theory that teachers should be bound by the same oath as doctors, First, do no harm.

The Next Best Thing to Dying

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Later, my daughter told me that she hadn't been scared because as I lay on the ground unconscious I continued to laugh, gradually relaxing into a big smile as I came around a minute later.

Ghoster

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Ross, I've been a ghost hunter for almost 10 years now and this is a place I said I WOULD NEVER NEVER EVER go to!

I Am Not Like All The Rest: Funny Lines From Online Dating Profiles

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After becoming single at age 62, I joined an online dating site. After a year of perusing profiles and meeting men for coffee, staying single is starting to look better and better to me. But I've stayed on the site, in part for the pure enjoyment of…

sabotage

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people keep trying to get me/ "out of the house"./ they see fun in me, and cool in me,/ and want to spend time with me,/ and i am flattered most sincerely./

Leaping Through Flames

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I should have never gotten involved in such a huge lie. I was a poet, for God's sake, not a novelist. I wasn't used to lying.