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55 words

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The patient people who work with the insane are not my kind of people. They are too entertained by the oddness of the inmates and act with a superior sense. I, on the other hand, am odd myself, searching for adherents to my view. The inmates knew me as such and agreed…

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 1)

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Boys of summer in Yonkers played stickball and baseball.

A Course In Positive Thinking

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The debits and credits of life have been recalculated. You are not due tax; you are owed a trapeze. It turns out you have a natural gift for hanging upside down, knees to the clouds.

3 short poems

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Say the word and I shall become a photograph;

watch

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what drives them here?

All-Night Cartoon Party

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'Hey, are you supposed to be from a cartoon or something?' said the Grim Reaper. I had to take a big drink before I could reply. I didn't know what to say, so I said 'Could I see your watch, please?' He looked down my dress while he thought about it.

THE GIFT

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If you run into my Aunt Lucille, put your head down and keep walking. She knows when a person is going to die. She knows when a fatal disease is heading your way and she doesn't keep it to herself. She told my best friend, Mary Lou Pierce, don't bother

Smooth Criminal

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In an early scene in Marvel's 2015 movie Ant-Man, the film's protagonist, Scott Lang, a convicted felon and former burglar, is summoned to his boss Dale's office at Baskin-Robbins."Three years at San Quentin, huh?" says Dale."You found out," Scott replies."Baskin-Robbins…

Peach

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She's standing outside the 7-11, skirt up round her ass. Ripe. She could be a whore but she looks way too classy. Plus she has a huge soda - I'd guess diet - and a Twinkie.

The Black Hole

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Matilda went wild at sixty-five. Legs left unshaven for the first time in fifty years, hair still and proud, knotted with forgetting. She’d roam the streets at night, a traveler without design. Matilda was a gardener of sorts, digging up all previous assu

LOTUS

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Make cartography with your mouth...

LIGHT FINGERS

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Like gymnastics, shoplifting is a discipline of youth.

Five Uneasy Pieces

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Eighteen-layered canvases were prized by both of them, regardless of whose work appeared on top.

What You Catch a Glimpse of, Forget As Soon

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There are gestures, unmarred by the words put to them after all has failed. When Y. stopped you from talking to apply lip balm to your dry lips. Or she sidled up to you to read what you had written for her. When you lay on the grass together she put her head on…

Angels

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Not everybody sees Father. Not Mom, not Dad, not even my little brother, Andre, and he see lots of things. Me, I need to.

How It Is

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When Ryan isn’t around, those of us who know him lament that he peaked at 17, at Disney World.

Short Fuse

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he scans the headlines of the tabloids as he waits to pay. “Dog Accidentally Shoots Man With His Own Gun, Elvis's Hidden Extraterrestrial Daughter, Swedish Man Bursts Into Flames on Train Platform.”

The Human Car Wash of Self-Esteem

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It was one of those dinner parties where everyone had had a little too much to drink, and the conversation around the table had grown more . . . shall we say, spirited.

Memory Freeze

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When the snow reached the windowsills I was no longer a virgin.

(There Are Ways) to Come Home

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When you return home, one year to the day that you left us, you will wonder if you can do it all over again.

Watercolored Different

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Simon Ridley only had one special power. Whenever he walked into a room, an awkward silence would descend.

TPP or...

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This was looking down from what we know as The Grassy Knoll.

The Mommy's Girl

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Her mother dressed her like a little girl would dress a doll.

500 Words or Less

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A brief commentary on the uselessness of endings.

AN HOUR EVERY AFTERNOON

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This is the only time she feels she can be herself.

Petunias

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People huddle in their basements like kittens. People laugh, darkly, saying they'd rather be surfing. People wonder if their batteries are charged. People never do get what they want. People grow tired of the sad dog following them around. People want you to know how…

The Counter Where Names Go To Die

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One day a woman, one of several translators at Ellis Island, asks him why he has changed a passenger’s name from Checzowicz to something else. “The name was too long,” he says. “Ten letters.” She replies, “But you didn’t change O’Shaughnessy, and it has

Girlfriends

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—That was harsh, said Jen as the bathroom door slammed behind Melanie. —Mel's my best friend, not yours. She needed to know that shade of blue doesn't go with olive skin. —Viv, you said she looked like a whore. —That's how our friendship…

| To Sew the Night Together, At Last | (A hybrid essay)

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____________________________________I get an internet connection and send this poem out in haste: Drugs, New Orleans…

Divinatrix

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Hooking up.