1283 1 1
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I should have worn shorts.
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128310
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Around sunset or sometime after, we are on the futon talking about dream lives and cancers. He asks me about my ideal living situation, my ideal career, my ideals in general. I would be a turtle, I say. I would travel and have a home I could always go to, I could always be…
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128310
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Mr. Townsend is a normal guy. He's been on auto pilot a while. When he finally snaps out of it, he's surprised at what he finds.
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128351
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He sneezed Hit the wrong buttonDidn't mean to kill him,but he didHeld onto me then, cryingand could not stopI feel so awful, he sobbedHe was asking for mercyAnd I meant to say, "yes,I will spare your life,"but I hit the kill buttoninsteadIt was an accidentHoney, it's just a…
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128300
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REVELATIONS Bobby Coleman hated every part of his job — not just the usual things like meaningless deadlines, unrealistic work loads, and failed expectations; Coleman was done with all of it. Too many years at his nine to five had him convinced he was…
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128322
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I give you three words
dripping wet with whatever and you
take them, harbor them...
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128342
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Vicki's scream echoed in Michiko's ear, an unwelcome earworm.
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128200
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I sat in the kitchen with the phone in my hand. The phone had just stopped ringing. When it rang, its screen lit up with the face of the caller. It vibrated and played a tune called "Dusk 2 Dawn." Now the kitchen was silent.
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128242
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A man walks up and faces
this new red brick wall
The bricks are all perfect
as you might expect in a dream
And the cement is tuck-pointed
without a dribble, anywhere
He looks at the wall
and puts his head through it
And when he pulls h
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128221
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Hot sweaty bodies slam into each other to get aboard the overflowing subway car. I struggle to wedge myself though the sliding doors, bracing for more bodies to press against mine. The passengers in front of me suddenly stop and fan out.
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128251
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If someone told me like people do / that I am a good person / I will never believe them / mostly because I own a mirror / but also because I have lived with myself / for the rest of my life
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128253
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Soft rain, small rain, steady rain—
what the shrubs and tangled
young red oak tree need—
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128221
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I try to slot into order the sequence of events: the book deal that appeared and then winked away like a dying star, the white gloves and the brick through Waterstone's window; my novel lying in the shop front in a bed of glass.
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128222
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Yes, I had pulled my own heart apart
Yes, I had slipped up on time itself
In its own backyard behind my memories
And scared the crap out of it
By not yelling, just sniffing at its neck
Longingly, tearing it apart with my teeth
Wishing I had
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128244
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It was a battered, creaky, rickety old thing, this wheelbarrow. It had two wooden handles with cracks running through the wood, a fat rubber wheel and a deep tray encrusted with the mud and plaster and grout that it had transported through decades of heavy use. Based on…
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128231
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He told me it isn’t my fault. That my brain isn’t slowly and deliberately killing itself, not barbarically stripping away its own wiring to expose razor bursts of electricity.
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128220
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We kidnap mothers of all sorts: old mothers, single mothers, young mothers (rarely), but we never do it for ransom. As a society we are adamantly opposed to the use of violence. Our mission is to remove mothers from environments they are not appreciated in, whether by their…
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1281102
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We floated balloons to my dead uncle in Heaven for closure. I couldn't figure, at age seven, how he was under the ground and in the sky too. Mom touched Dad on the arm. It was Dad's brother. It seemed like Mom was sorry for something…
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128110
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I liked E first because she knew all the words to "Alice's Restaurant." Everybody knows "American Pie," but "Alice's," that's impressive. We used to cut class in high school and drive around listening to it, and I'd try to pretend I knew the words, but I never did, so…
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128141
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128130
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I still remember the old times when we were together. I wish I wouldn't have let you go. If you ever thought that we should be together, please come back.
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128100
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We huddle behind the bedroom door and hear the swish of dad's belt as he yanks it from the pant loops, our backsides clenched.
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128143
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The old hate the young. Robe exposed monks do not Hate mosquitoes. It is one. It is one hand. It is on. Mountains don't hate sky. The rich hate the poor. The poor hate the rich. The parade of scholars hate the …
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1281116
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More thoughts on denial...
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128151
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As with the trouble with gambling, I managed to spend beyond my self-suggested limit at the farm while wanting to do little else. It became a chase for "money" (numbers like rubles) ...
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128100
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But in the dust bunny there was an equally relentless and sneaky foe. A brilliant General that silently marshaled its troops under tables and chairs, in obscure, shadowy corners, and along the unsuspecting flat surface of things.
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128100
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We're all just meat and atoms who can no more sense into the great beyond than a horse can fly a plane.
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128145
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But El Roy
Never listen no so
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128111
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how many lighted days remain
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128150
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I remember seeing five young losers standing outside this bar, smoking cigarettes in their baggy shorts and flip-flops, giving the occasional high-fives. They weren’t even eating their calzone, and I was getting upset about it. (I hadn’t eaten the whole
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