1342 2 2
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A single woman should regard every train ride as an opportunity, I once read in one of those “How to Find A Boyfriend” books. “When boarding the train, don't take the first available seat,“ the author advised. “Walk through all the cars…
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1342 6 5
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He doesn't call, not even on her birthday. She doesn't mention it or complain. She knows she doesn't have it as bad as some, even in this privileged Triangle of North Carolina. She is white and pretty and belongs to what's left of the middle…
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1342 4 3
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Nights this husband returned home still hungry sometimes, even for her forearms against his own
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1342 0 0
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Your father, his father, and his before that, your mother, her mother, and all the way back have kept a tradition by chance or by will to each have a baby (or several) until…
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1342 4 0
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We’ve already agreed on a date when Jack posts some new pictures of himself. I have to swallow. Hard. In four days Jack’s become twenty years older!
On Thursday, a boyish thirty-something was smiling at me from my PC. This Monday I find myself stari
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1342 6 1
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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
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1341 1 1
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For example, I never noticed that the moon had eyelashes, not until tonight. You said you couldn’t really see that, not at all. You preferred the fact that the word “lunatic” sounded like an attic on the moon...
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1341 5 5
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Another year has flown, crashed to the ground, and convulsed to its death in a final match with the meaninglessness of existence. Decided to try my luck as a Walmart greeter this year but the apomorphine treatment made me break out in hives and I reacted…
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1341 1 1
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You think there’s a chance the bag could be holding a severed head, or live or dead kittens.
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1341 5 4
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—You know, Angelique, said Elaine Aster, dabbing her lips with a napkin, I’ve opened a new gallery in Paris.
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1341 1 0
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I’m not ready for football. I’m not ready for it, but I live in a southern town that worships at its altar more devoutly than those suicidal beauties in James Wright’s great poem.
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1341 3 2
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sometimes it's hard/ to leave the house in the morning/ when bed is so comfortable/ and you're so far away.
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1341 3 4
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She put the Necco wafer on Sally's tongue."You can't be the priest, Emma" Sally said nearly choking on the hard, chalky disk."Then why you on yaw knees stupid?""You said to be prayin' and like in church, but you can't be doin' priest stuff. That's for…
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1341 1 0
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For weeks I hadn’t been able to think straight, waiting to lay vision on those majestic, swooning breasts.
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1341 8 5
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The problem with drinking gin in the desert is that eventually there is no more gin but the desert is still there.
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1341 0 0
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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
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1341 3 0
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You’ve got me standin’ on my knees,
A’searchin’ for a beggar’s alms,
From folks who’re deaf to all my pleas
And blind to open palms.
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1341 2 3
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Me sad because of results set forth in my life story.
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1341 1 1
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A hinge in my heart is broken.
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1340 6 6
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The world has long since been bootlegged by madmen. The new invisible con men are the same as the old visible con men, hiding and lying behind their walls of lingering death. There's a weapon wielding demon hell bent on an insane vengeance crawling around…
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1340 2 1
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The kitchen is full of old girlfriends. I avoid them. They are munching on cheddar and sharing stories I'm sure I don't want to hear.
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1340 3 0
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1340 12 8
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in White Heat
there’s a character
who reads lips
using a mirror to see
the mouths of prisoners
in other cells
that’s how I feel
when I talk
with you
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1340 1 0
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the honesty of bodies & the lies hidden under skin.
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1340 5 4
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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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1340 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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1340 8 6
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There are stranded people just like us, that's Not necessarily what I'm looking for. Negativity won't pull us through the Barbed-wire halls of hate. And even if I Was the only one, I wouldn't want you To look any different in the mirror. I'm older …
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1340 7 4
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The marble, it's just there.
I can't explain
how it got there
(or when),
all I know
is that everything
is in that marble.
By "everything,"
I mean every
thing. Your breakfast?
It's there.
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1340 8 8
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Able to search through centuries, I click, scribble, skim,resurrect wet stone walls, the smell of burning peat.Bob's your uncle; Peggy's your aunt.Name your family, child. My brother said helloto Uncle Shirley and Aunt Greg. I was more…
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1340 2 1
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I came to a field where, scattered around, were quite a few men digging holes
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