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Unintentional Hermits/ Animal Cities- The Helper

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So this was how it started. The next day Kia returned to sit with him a bit and the next day and the day after that until the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Eventually she found out his name was Saul, that he had no 'proper' job, was o

Gymnopedies

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Does sound shape silence/ or silence shape sound?

A Man More Like Your Mother

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Does he pack you a lunch when you're running late for work? Even when you're not running late? Does he insist on regular medical check-ups, for which he'll pay because you don't have insurance? Will he disapprove of your objectionable behavior, and not turn the…

Kracton Commons

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Without light it is black.

Mother's Day

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By lunch: The dryer is an F-5 dervish of mismatched socks, blue jeans and your yellowing college T's, lovingly held onto. For a moment there is a comforting warmth and softness to their smell. In the debris strewn landscape of the living room a carcass

Lingua Materna, Lingua Imperiale

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arrogant, sullen,/ supple and ambiguous,// English seems the ideal tongue

RONDO ROND WE GO

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When he got to the office, he opened the drawer with the new can of fish food and realized he’d forgotten to buy a fish tank. He hated fish, hated the thought of a “hobby” but his girlfriend’s therapist had suggested it. Hobbied, hobbled, whatever

When the Moon Becomes the Sun

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While most spread their time in other occupation, I traveled through books and grew my imagination. I knew endless bliss. I was a book eater. I would just devour books that I loved and slug through those I didn't, just to make myself eat the truths and li

Nocturnes

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You go out on a night with no moon, when all the stars are flush in the sky, when all of everything, even you, is just a shadow moving softly, and I swear, you can hear it, if you listen hard enough. The music. It’s like it’s coming from under the ground.

Hold on

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I slept and it was pleasant. Then there was the kiss, and it was hot. Later you turned away, and all was November chill. Now there are touches, caresses and shouts, Marvelous nights flavored with favors bestowed, and blackened days,…

Buck, naked

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Buck, naked, has no words. The best he can manage is a dopey strangulated cough. His wife, who is clothed, stands before him, next to the waterbed that took Buck half a day to force into the trailer.

My Gall Bladder is Really Warm Today

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The English phrase "Nice to see you" translates into "My gall bladder is really warm today" in Berik, a language of New Guinea. What Language Is, John McWhorter

Zero

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The arithmetic of human experience/ is always a losing game for some. Poor Jane. Rich Dick.

the leisure to walk about sweetly

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You seemed to have that leisure to walk about sweetly when I was with you, honey-singing the reward for the intensity of emotion you lunged about in. Nothing seemed like it was going to hurt or harm anyone, even while I was going nuts between the legs.

Pura Vida

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The girl lifts my head, and I sit up straight once again. She hands me a pair of old work gloves, helps put them on my swollen hands. She wipes my face with a wet, warm towel. Her thin arms tremble. She cries. I cry.

The Fine Madness

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A phrase, a sentence, a stanza,/ sounds among the sums and lists/ and starts a scratched cascade/ of syllables and other approximations--

It’s a compromising situation...

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It’s a compromising situation... The would be Bride of Christ begins perspiring before the crowd. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring echoes through the antique church just one more time, a little loud. With every added verse and every flickering vigi

Moving Out

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Lying in the blissful glow of young television. Idly sleeping, eyes open and ears closed.

instead

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instead of gun metal deceit, sounds of malice;be a drop of rain.

Frankenstein's Monster Eats the Brains of Virgins at the Witches' Chainsaw Orgy Massacre

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If Heaven holds forth its own Infinity, What of selves, of ours, could we stand to see? Cradled with harsh fangs of Memory, Deep forgetfulness, give rather me- Let bright dreams be our self's divinity: Forever holds, in morrow's hours, such little…

Action she feels as folly, I respond

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Once a friend asked me to write about rape in an email, so I wrote that it is a weapon of war that would not work here because partners do not give in to it; in fact, they would say it is infidelity in relationships.

(Withheld) 1970

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The Moon The hatch of the lunar module hissed as it opened, a few puffs of leftover water vapor escaped toward them in a sparkling white cloud that rapidly dissolved…

Mo Band Names

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Her Majesty’s Glasses Umbilical Chord Linger Finger Okay Inkjet The Dragon Flies Horny Free Spirit Good Footnote Buttery Clams You’reUp Empty Bladder Star Butter Karmic Impulse Mr. On-the-Ve

The Gatekeeper Of The Pathogens

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It was in his teeth. A blackness, a subscription to an outsideness, a painful contraction of burnt out trees scattered there among sand drifts and tidal debris. His face, lightly weathered and troubled, a tightness built into eyes of thought and separation. His arms, strong…

The Fields

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Swat at those screeching children with tufts of harp-grass. Flail, mad eyed and sad sighed with all gleaming hope gone out of the daylight. Swat and screech swat and screech. We continue until their thick bark-like hides are smooth and polished. We sand them with…

The Master of the Air

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He thought of it as magic, but magic that he understood, the way a magician knows about the hidden compartments in his hat and trunks.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 14

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We both looked toward the house. We could just make out a light that was barely visible coming from the side where their bedroom window was. Slowly an evil grin appeared on Darrell's face. He looked at the knife in his hand. "This will do it!" he sa

Hook

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“What the fuck!” Duke muttered, amazed at what he was seeing in the darkened store. A thin curtain of smoke was rising from under the baseboard like an inverted waterfall. It stretched the entire length of the left wall. Holy shit, the joint's on fire! I…

Sisyphus

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I build pedestals.It's hard workHeld together by sweat, love, and lofty thoughts - an unsound foundation.The tiniest bit of heartbreak,and it comes crashing down. Always, I blame the builder and not the vandal. The next one will be…

Off We Go Then

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Wish more than ever there was a more perfect way to mean everything I say. If I could I'd certainly walk all my words right up to your face now and give them over, hand to hand so to speak. That's the point at which I'd very much…