1444 1 0
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One day over a hardscrabble dinner of gristly beef and lumpy mashed potatoes, his uncle looked up at him and said, “Kee-rist, boy, school’s gonna start any day now. And winter ain’t far behind. I can’t keep you here. We gotta figure out something for you.
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144420
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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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144452
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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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144323
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I underline the passages Momma does in her Bible and circle the same words she does, of the oil Samuel uses to anoint David...
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144340
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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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144333
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Wishing he holds you all night, unshaven chin/between your breasts.
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1443139
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Every year I have a birthday, and every year
another of my friends succumbs to cancer or suicide.
That's
a shitty gift. That is devoutly not to be wished.
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144300
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Leaving another seemingly pointless day at the office. 4:55pm. Winding through the office parking lot; turning right onto SE Convenience Blvd; inevitably pulling up to a red stoplight at the Orlabor intersection.My windshield is dirty. Speckled with thrown-up slush from…
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1443128
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A friend's remark about androgyny, "it's overrated," she said.
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144365
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The one at
dusk is not the one you met this morning.
That one's gone like a head in the window.
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144333
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Fragment’s of ignorance strewn by a haphazard hand
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14431813
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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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144321
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son a superfly/alligator shoe clad/networking man/working a beeper and flip phone/twisting blueberry spliffs/on ma's porch
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144322
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The scared woman, she hides her flaws from the world.
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144363
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No temporary solace upon this patch of earth,
stymied in your injury; labored by your girth.
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144320
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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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144398
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Pinesatz is standing again. He and Marie seem unaware of time, unaware that Louane is watching them, unaware of waiting for Wendy with the car. Every glance is a hook. Every gleam is a glance. Every stanza is a room. She vies for it.
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144365
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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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1443102
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Rasheed changes his mind about working for me. He can't bring himself to break with Uzma. The bond between them is too strong. I admire his loyalty, to her and to her parents. Don turns out to be my most reliable ally. Plus, he brings a ragtag security force with…
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144344
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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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144321
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This energy said, "Fuck it, I am going to be the fucking sun."
In it’s language it sounded more like "Khershhhhhhh Hhhhhhhhhhh Zirshhhhhhh."
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144210
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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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144252
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I’d made that shot a thousand mental times, and when it counted, I missed. It happens.
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144211
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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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144231
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“The King,” he paused, pursed his lips, looked across the crowd of eager and fearful citizens of Ki, “is dead!”
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144211
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Eating my teeth off pulling the silk from my lips and swallowing each kerchief wholejust trying to find the priest who has his heart set on a motorcycle
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144221
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The officer’s eggs and bacon rested on the asphalt amid shattered ceramic and boot heels.
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144220
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When she was just a little bit younger, Dana wanted to be known around town as something other than the girl who used up all the machines at the laundromat with her little brothers' Spiderman underwear and her grandpa's pants soiled with God-knows-what. Something…
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14421612
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“Have the cousins arrived?”
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144200
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There are several people I do not care for much at all—annoying cretins, blasé philistines, or godawful narcissuses—and I do not care much for caring about such people when I encounter them, which unfortunately happens quite often like some cruel lottery where I…
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