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Gabe

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“Damn!” he said to himself, wondering for the millionth time what he was doing in such a sad line of work. Break time, he decided, grabbing his stash box and locking himself into the freezing cold bathroom to smoke a joint. He emerged thirty minutes la

Myra's Cigarettes

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I know from the experience of too many odd sideways glances that folks are seldom interested in my brand of observation. No one else seems to wonder how many commas there are in the library or how many other people own that exact shirt.

I want to hear the man talk

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I remember going out to a restaurant with some guy and a friend of mine who brought her little boy along. And suddenly her boy said, “I want to hear the man talk.” Well, that stopped us. Smart kid, I thought. He was fed up hearing her women friends talk

Dramarama and Acid Wash Jeans

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Looking down you wonder, when did I eat pineapple? and Am I really this awesome or am I a facsimile of something that really sucks, even if it's that 'it's so bad it's good' kind of thing? Nope, it's just bad.

60 is the new 20

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I once saw a TV commercial that showed a group of Anglo retirees laughing around a card table. The slogan 60 is the new 20 floated beneath their fat, fun-loving heads. My parents are bona fide Baby Boomers. Their lives are build on credit and catchy…

Jack Noodle

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So you printed your resume on this coffee cup - that’s something - I wanted you guys to think about me every morning - while you were getting your coffee

Next Time, Academics

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I suggested when we passed the flesh shack that we turn around and that I go in and say to the sex workers that the Russians are fetching $3.5K per hour in Manhattan and it's private, unlike there at that road-side shack.

the genes of Edouard Manet

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was entering into a new phase of its existence, a peculiar paradigm of the wider world where, presaged by science, economic and political ideologies were conspiring to displace the old verities of religion and aesthetics, but where…

Cairn

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Your cairns/ are litter in the streets

Jonestown on a Global Scale

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Picture it-/ air not clogged with the shit// that makes Beijing the dark joke/ of the developed world.

who really wants to be a virgin anyway?

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I remember thinking virginity was highly over-rated. Who really wants to be a virgin anyway? I got out of that state as fast as I could. Sixteen years (okay maybe 15 and a half) is long enough of not knowing what to do with your body. Screw that! But th

2

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Then I am in Washington DC impersonating an accountant.

A Cool Dry Place PART 1

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There are times when she is heavy and times when she is light.

Drowning By The Pool(2nd Revised Version)

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The entire room seems waiting for me like an octopus behind a closed, chained door. The monk of the lamp knows he will get his daily turn-on if he prays loudly and just enough for it. The favorite chair has my blue dent in its punched…

Tuna

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Falling asleep remembering lies that had been built around lies Lies to impress people Lies to make life more convenient Lies, I didn’t even know why I told them.

My Mistress

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the ex now alien

Arcade

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My father owned a penny arcade. I worked for him every summer all during my youth. My job was to hand green tickets to customers who achieved a certain score on Skee-Ball or shuffleboard. The coupons could be redeemed for merchandise which we had on display on…

rewind...

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here’s the deal… sorrow follows tears… pain later for the happiness now… is the joy something we only borrow…?

Goodbye Uncle Jack

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He fought off the U-boat packs in the Atlantic — one hand on the tiller, one on the torpedo launch button.

Interlude in Trader Joe's Parking Lot

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I'm pulled in by the music like a rogue wave and he has no idea I'm drowning...

A Dutiful Daughter

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The first indication I had of what I look like came when a man put me back on the rack, remarking that I was too pink. Over the weeks that followed, I gained a few more ideas about my appearance from the comments of people in the shop. My photographic side had been…

Are You A Handywoman? Take This (Not Entirely Serious) Test and Find Out!

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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…

Stellar

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After our first kiss, a team of scientists scrubbed away the cancer of your lipstick.

Cracked Heart Reigns in My Eyes

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Rainy eyes fall fast somewhere close to me Riding the wind like lust

The Night She Took Her Dignity Back

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She had endured three years of abuse for those hot, fleeting moments of tenderness—just enough warmth to keep her second-guessing the bitter frost. Now the ring promised a lifetime of biting back her pain.

The Roses Ask For You

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The roses ask for you when I smell them They seem to remember your touch more than others. They can’t bear it when you’re gone and wonder when you’ll be returning I am beginning to do the same I no longer go outdoors to be with them

All Wet

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the small break of consciousness that is my dreamswaterso much wateri can never forgive the watertoo many tears

Third Shift

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Some great, doubtless precious; some hollow, likely empty; some only shards, but you never know...

The Late, Late Show

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Camilla and I watched a movie, then we were the movie. A man wandered in a decrepit house, or in a dream of a house, which had wallpaper hanging like shredded flesh and little mounds of filth and a madwoman with a butcher knife creeping from room to room with fear or…

Luminous Nights, 2

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The house where my brother lived up in the hills above Hollywood, looked like any other suburban house on any normal street Anywhere USA, except that once you got inside the house — spread out at your feet was a panoramic view over a canyon that was act