1047 2 2
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Every year at the orphanage, a new trend sprouted fully grown from a Sears Christmas catalog, and even though our belief in Santa Claus was dashed early on, we still loved the season because it meant a Paint by Number, Pogo stick, Hula Hoop or whatever…
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104743
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You always liked the color of your nose, raspberry red. It matched the glittery dazzle of your rainbow hair when the neon lights hit it just right, and man did they always hit it just right, the vibrant honey-yellow big-bird frizz and feathers, swaying to and fro as…
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104710
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Michael shifted impatiently as his mom steadied the gyrocycle above the parking space. A rather blank, empty smile came over her face, and Michael understood. The Proctors were everywhere and where they weren’t, there was always a Neighbor who would be h
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104787
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We do not want to be here. Need ensnares/
and pulls us. We put on its tightened face/
which mirrors what each guest will wear
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1047107
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By the time the third car disappeared, Bud had noticed sudden lulls in the breeze, rain microbursts from otherwise blue skies, cold humid calms that trailed him around the junk.
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104764
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as you are, there's a big floating arm that separates both of us from each other. Widening, like a river, it touches us together often, but still keeps us drifting apart. The banks of your new life have different weeds and flowers…
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104782
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104700
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The summer we were fourteen we snuck out of our houses...
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104711
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“Goodnight,” he said before leaving the room and shutting his bedroom door behind him. She stood in the kitchen alone now, a shot of vodka poured into a shot glass, and a bottle of coke ready to swig afterwards. This didn't make her an alcoholic…
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104620
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Terry marked each spot where we did it with a red “X” on this map she had taken from my dad's gas station. In those days gas stations gave out maps for free.
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104600
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It was just a blob. It was a blob that blocked everything from sight that it covered, and it was a blob that refused to remain in one shape or size, but it was just a blob. It wasn't the first time…
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104611
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I thought I would beThe standing champagne glassunmarked and gleamingThe sleeping silverParalleling matesInert as ChinaBut I was the catasleep on the rug
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104630
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If I came home and she had peed, even after I walked her in the morning before I left, I would tighten up my whole face and shoulders, so I wouldn't hit her, and I would grab her by the tags collar, and I would hiss at her what she needed to know, what sh
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104632
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I saw an older writer in a slouched-down Fedora,
gray beard and long scraggly gray ponytail,
who had empty chairs pulled up all around him,
at the Loser Café,
maybe for his imaginary friends,
or maybe those who were already gone.
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104644
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I think I know these pigeons
They were once beggars
From another life
Once I myself was stuck like them
I was never
Without the thought of food
Or sex, or sipping soda pop
Off the sidewalk
And flying meant next to nothing
But then
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104650
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Death is like a warmcup of hot cocoa, steamingup into nothing. The sun rise will bringprison bars of light through thebedroom blinds again. Sorry about thefirst three hours of your deathI thought you were drunk. Across the park thestrange dog looks…
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104621
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Is death like standing in a room at night and turning off the lights? You would still hear your breathing. You hold your breath. Silence. Darkness. Yet you feel gravity, your feet on the floor. Then the air brushes your skin. Remove the air,…
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104620
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With a sigh she rubbed her face into wakefulness, and then sucked two fingers, thinking of melted cheese.
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104641
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I remember saying, I’ll tell you what I think, if you tell me even one of your little secrets, okay? Whoa! A little too much information there, Wolfie, or Pharaoh, or whatever your name is now.
I remember you with the same beard (just a different co
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1046118
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Gestures we would like to make in the solitude of a café terrace ... Early in the morning ... She's sitting there, seems shivering. Grey dress, red scarf. Her eyes move. I try to meet them - small, vague black clouds which pass, without resting, by mine. She drinks her…
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104620
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“I believe it is some form of primitive recreation with a board and wheels,” the one and a half eyed orange blob said with an Australian accent.
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104663
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We have become//
the sum of our appetites,/
the growth curve of our dominion.
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104610
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And I'm usually soft-spoken.
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104521
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She was a rich widow who lived down the street.
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104510
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A boy sits in a room filled with old, broken toys. A mother is in the next room reading Cosmopolitan, dreaming of a life that should have been hers. There is the zoo and an unnecessary stroller on a very humid day, beads of sweat dripping slowly down a face. A trip to the…
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104532
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“She said I hurt her and my father, the both of them.”
Rose patted her round belly, carried high and in front, likely a boy. “I can see that.”
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104511
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Jackhammered men hollow out the building, cart away decade-old works of other men. Exterior walls stand. Rooms have been demolished. In another day see what came before progress. See trees. A squall is coming. Ask about the…
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104520
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Still worried. I could use some more hope in my oatmeal.
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104500
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I thought drowning you was the answer. I had barely opened my eyes as I leaned over the sink to brush my teeth, and you were poised near the drain, a furry brown spider, and the largest one I had ever seen up close. I was afraid to smash you, so I flooded you with…
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104510
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Adrienne found her calling in Africa
feeding poor children
or whatever the fuck you do
when you're in the Peace Corps.
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