1453 4 4
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It began the night my parents took my brother and I to see The Vikings at the drive-in and the trailer for The Girl Can't Help It came on the screen, introduced by the completely acceptable Tom Ewell, which the folks could swallow, he was one of them, but as soon as…
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145352
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“Please excuse the form letter, but due to the volume of god-awful submissions that we receive, we do not have the time to crush the spirit of each writer personally.”
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145221
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Zoë’s divorce lawyer, Arno Aghajanian (“Double A” to his friends), sat at his desk in Los Angeles reading a copy of the Hollywood Intelligencer.
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145211
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They run nonstop for weeks. Between traffic stalled cars. Down forgotten subways tunnels drilled long ago in the cold earth. Past burning sugarcane fields.
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145244
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My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.
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145231
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. . . my mind stops idling, kicks back into gear . . .
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1452126
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We hold fast to the bed’s corners, afraid our bodies, these new old bodies, have forgotten how to love in its center.
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145220
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her skin was delicate, fragile, that old woman skin that appears to be translucent.the rip caused by the knife opened it up like tissue paper. blood welled for a moment, then poured out with real purpose.this was the delight he found in old ladies.. the scent of their…
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145265
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I heard them praying to some god
none of us had ever heard of.
I'm glad I went to the funeral
and still have the yellow rose that I
did not throw into his grave.
At some point
you have to stop nibbling
from the moldy cake.
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145254
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It was noon and cloudless when I pulled over next to the icehouse, wedged in the X formed by two dirt roads.
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145120
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I loved baseball and still do, but if you saw me at eleven years old you would not mistake me for that kid over there, the one with even an ounce of talent. Mine you’d measure in atoms.
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145140
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Koo ate the sad, bitter pills just so she wouldn’t have to try and make small talk about La Donna’s deformed, retarded kid.
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14511612
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“Have the cousins arrived?”
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145144
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The other day my friend, Donald, said Shirley always tells him she loves him and she probably does in her way, but it didn't comport with what he walked in and found her doing again last night. She was back at it, hunched over her computer, having chat sex with the…
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145156
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her hands twined up, as carved from stone, each to fit the other.
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145132
|
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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14511813
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After her grief had subsided, the wife felt immediate relief. / Suddenly she was free to abandon or pursue loneliness
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145144
|
And if I lived a thousand lives...
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145131
|
He pronounced the Afrikaans word with the vowel sound like the vowel in dour. It meant box, but it also meant cunt.
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145165
|
pulled the
wool off my head
found i
was almost dead
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145120
|
I gazed into her soft eyes. I was a little scared. This...this meant something.We'd "accidentally" played footsies and I could feel my lonely feet finally touching the floor."Please listen carefully to these safety instructions — even if you are a frequent flyer…
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145143
|
The photograph has no date,but these are my long-ago kin,ancestors just before the boat,six stone-faced on the English shore,sepia on cardstock under glassstill clear in severe, dark clothesexcept one who has been markedout, maybe with black wax,which runs to the bottom…
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145122
|
Everybody knew the buildings were trying to kill us.
|
145010
|
They all knew he had cancer before the doctors gave the final verdict. His wife wept and his parents held him tightly. It was a dreadful time for all. Out in the hall his children looked on with fearful faces and shook their heads as he begged them inside with a…
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145011
|
This is 57% of middle America, I'm convinced: doomed.
|
145011
|
My friend and I were once walking the aisles of a supermarket because we decided we were going to have roasted duck. We didn’t know how to cook, but as the old Filipino reds used to say: If not now, when? If we don’t learn how to cook now, as in NOW, then
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145042
|
Depression had Frank in its craw.
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145055
|
I should probably make it clear up front that I am not in my right mind, which I quite understand compromises the credibility of what I'm about to say. Without going into the history of my minor and somewhat more major psychotic episodes, my psychiatrist, unsure how finally…
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145043
|
I used to fear things. The lonesome wind come through the clapboards. Dry hillsides rustling. My own skin in the summer heat. Rattlers. Lurking. Abandoned coal pits. Pa said I was afraid of desolation. I didn't know what he meant by that. How can you be…
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1450159
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I will wrap up in quilts that still smell of summer sun
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