1224 9 7 
      
			 
			
			
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				Thus, more people can drown//
and leave their bones 
					
				 
				
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1224 11 9 
      
			 
			
			
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				The Poisoning  I used to call my dad Serpico. Thirty years on the police force, and though a respected officer, he never fit in. He never had beers with the guys at the end of a shift or engaged in the more lewd locker room talk. None of the other cops were privy to which… 
					
				 
				
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1223 8 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				Every encounter is a dance, every secret has its key 
					
				 
				
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1223 1 1 
      
			 
			
			
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				"I'm just saying," the older man continues, "We oughta be ready in case she hits."
            "We'll be fine," the woman says. "We've weathered every storm that's ever come through here just fine." 
					
				 
				
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1223 1 1 
      
			 
			
			
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				     There's something  about the way he touches me every time that makes my heart skip a beat and  pushes the air from my throat.  I shiver  under his hot breath while he whispers softly and pulls himself closer, letting  his fingers glide… 
					
				 
				
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1223 2 0 
      
			 
			
			
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				Prayer: Cold prayers in her throat, so far all unanswered. This thing grows steadily, unmistakably, cobbling counterfeit cells and flesh together into an unspeakable mass. 
					
				 
				
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1223 6 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				I figured he knew what he was doing–he was the crazy one, after all, not me–so we took turns snorting lines of equal volume. 
					
				 
				
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1223 2 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				I still wake up with a start to this day, remembering the sound of that squish. And the cheer from above of all the brutes hanging out the open castle window. And of course the roar of approval and delight from the hordes of Chinese, Russian, and Germ 
					
				 
				
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1223 7 6 
      
			 
			
			
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				We exist to facilitate/
successful conclusions of hopeless lives. 
					
				 
				
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1223 18 13 
      
			 
			
			
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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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1223 11 7 
      
			 
			
			
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				They might think that loneliness has made me gullible, more than willing to open for them all kinds of drawers. 
					
				 
				
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1223 6 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				I try as much as I can to write but only in as much as you believe―am I successful.
 
					
				 
				
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1223 6 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				Clasped his hands behind his head to give a moment’s thought to love and how it had never quite clarified in his mind to run pure and sweet. 
					
				 
				
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1223 4 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				It was time to go sit outside in the sunlight with the gang of trust-funders, just to see what was new in the world of high finance and falling stock prices. “So, what's happening with the economy in China?” I asked. And they just stared at me as if I had 
					
				 
				
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1223 0 0 
      
			 
			
			
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				Betty had been looking for a distraction; the lawsuits were out of control.  Her last nonprofit, Faith and Life Children's Organization, had run into some difficulties due to the recession and the obvious result of trying to do more with less.  Why couldn't people… 
					
				 
				
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1223 2 3 
      
			 
			
			
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				As I was reading “Not Your Mother's Book on Home Improvement,” a new collection of light-hearted essays by (primarily) middle-aged female do-it-yourselfers, it became abundantly clear to me that, unlike the women who tell their stories here, I am not a… 
					
				 
				
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1223 0 0 
      
			 
			
			
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				My Mother always said that a storm was death knocking.  
					
				 
				
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1223 1 0 
      
			 
			
			
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				The view from the tenth floor of Ramses Hilton hotel was depressing. A restless crowd undulated between the wrecks of tanks and armored cars.
JOURNALIST: Hey! I’m dying here, and you admire the views?
 
					
				 
				
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1223 4 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				Frank left Michiko’s building and walked into Central Park. 
					
				 
				
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1222 10 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				You drive that '67 Ford PU down highway  73 like it's gonna take you where you want to go.  Pig truck makes  you want to roll up your window, but it's just too damned hot.  You  stop on the shoulder next to a sign that tells you not to, and you  look in your glove box for a… 
					
				 
				
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1222 5 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				The redwood trees were taller than dreams 
					
				 
				
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1222 0 0 
      
			 
			
			
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				We at Cahiers must continually ask–is le cinema de kung fu pimping really, truly—as bad as it wanna be? 
					
				 
				
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1222 5 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				Is there a homunculus in my brain guiding everything like the pilot of an airliner?  
					
				 
				
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1222 1 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				Every time it happens,
I think of Amber Heard
and how hard you can be slapped
without a bruise forming. 
					
				 
				
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1222 7 4 
      
			 
			
			
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1222 11 8 
      
			 
			
			
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				In time's embroidery, the human storyis a short stretch of a short strand within the thread of half a knot-and that stretch of strand's defective. What will mourn us when we're gone?Not the plants which live so lightly on the earth.Not the scorpions and not the ants.Perhaps… 
					
				 
				
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1222 7 5 
      
			 
			
			
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				you can't always get what you want 
					
				 
				
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1222 10 4 
      
			 
			
			
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				Contest rules are simple. Two teams of five hunters each are established by drawing from pools of interested volunteers and selected prison inmates confined for capital crimes and illegal immigration.  
					
				 
				
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1222 5 2 
      
			 
			
			
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				It's  morning, and the cold black hull of branches sets my resting pier,    Amid  this drizzle, underneath the poignant pain of birches, wrecked    By  floods of midyear grieving; wraithlike, Dawn's been becked    To  paint in shafts of faded rose that shades the fen… 
					
				 
				
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1222 11 6 
      
			 
			
			
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				Died is forever. Passed away/
Is ambiguous. Dead isn’t/
polite. 
					
				 
				
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