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Blackballed

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When I was a small child, my father was just barely a man, and he was independently wealthy. So it didn't matter that he was an adolescent inside. There was never any mention of "working." No notion of career. Just the girl he knocked up and the amusing…

Jacob Ellis

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My name is Jacob Ellis. I was thinking about school and all those years and years and how they go eventually away but always remain somewhere in the mind as if imprinted on an akashic record. I was dizzy there, dizzy with dread and always on the verge of falling.…

The Empty Stool

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I walked up to the bar and sat down on the empty stool.“You don't want to sit there,” said the bartender.“Oh? Why not?” I replied.“It's haunted.”I laughed, but then stopped when I saw he was not laughing with me.“You're…

The Despotic Elephant

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An elephant with fascist tendencies,And various exotic dependancies,Kept his eye on,That there King Lion,Frustrated by his monarchic propensities.He made plans to over-throw,Thinking the Lion's popularity low,But he was discovered,When his habits were uncovered,Which was…

Bat (n.)

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Flying mammal with thin membrane forelimb adaptive wings. Amazing number of species from fruit-eating to insectivores. All capable of landing in your hair at night.

Uncertainty Principle

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Aleister Crowley walks in and all of a sudden the bar's filled with angels and demons and pagan things. Wood nymphs and stuff like that. Wittgenstein, to his credit, keeps cool. He just stands over there next to the dart machine, pointing at things and naming them. Like…

Nehwareven

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In the switched-off time of day's blackest rest-

bienvenue (a poem)

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if you lost your list on your way here i will help you get what you came for.

A Journal of the Plague Year: Day 289: Valedictory for a Clown

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the end of this journal

Sack

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He cut a hole in the sack

The visitors

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I am a small cottage up on the hill. Every morning, I open my windows and my front door. First enters dawn which turns the walls blue, followed by the sun laying straws of wheat on my table. Inside my cottage the day lights up the dark corners while the lamps go quietly…

Handiwork

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People speak of wordsmiths, as if they hammer text into shape; smelting down clunky prose, recasting from white-hot ink.

Retribution

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There could be a Reagan circle/ with a Maggie Thatcher suite.

Ode to Tomorrow

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If luscious lips lusted for love lost, they wouldn't be mine.

One Man's Post

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There was a bottleneck ahead. We slowed down single-file, me behind, to wait our turn to pass the doorway of a vacant storefront church. In it, a lone black man sat atop an empty plastic milk crate. Nobody looked at him; they were all slowing down and cro

Five Million Yen: Chapter 42

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We had sex, but hadn’t established a strong relationship. We liked each other as more than friends, but I was worried that Claudia was acting as a honey trap and spying on me for Dan Arris.

Puke

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What the fuck is that smell? Puke? Pine-Sol? Oh shit!Back seat of a cop car.Again?What is it this time?“Excuse me, officer? Where the fuck are my clothes?”

Chinese farmer gets life in prison for evading highway tolls

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Bring me your poor, your tired, your hungry anyone skilled at evading highway tolls Bring me your escape artists dangling upside down in a straight-jacket from the sides of tall buildings Don’t let them starve in the prisons of the world Bri

Good (Enough)

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Maybe I am good

It Can Hold Us All

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Look out for rotten ice. If you fall in, pull yourself out like a seal. Take off all your clothes and get to shelter.

WE SHOULDN'T HAVE BOUGHT THE FIREWORKS

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My chin is half-eaten. My chest is gone. There is a rhythm to how each flame licks me. Like how you used to in the mornings before work. Before the coffee. Before the toaster. Before a rose clenched between your teeth and dancing.

A Tinder Ghost

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Do you know if you were actually speaking to me there?

Anticipation

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Two minutes later Alicia Morgan stepped out of her car. Her smile faltered momentarily and he saw that she assumed the mistake was hers

Fill In the Void

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I’m not in the habit of just hanging out on the corner handing out “free stuff,” you know. I figured it was going to cost you. But I was wrong. It cost me instead. You can only float near the ceiling when you’ve become an emptied vessel. No hope or

a girl's legs stirring the air

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I dreamt my legs were stirring the air up behind your back, as you lay between my thighs. Stirring the air repetitively, like a sea anemone stirring the water to feed the soul, the hunger between the legs and arms, for new life. Stirring up the salt

Pointing Fingers.

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She burns her wrists with menthols; she says it's too much effort to cut them. Besides, it's more fun.

Swings

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My backyard was first Grass tickling my bare feet Skipping along the bottoms of my toes. I broke my arm there; I always hurt myself Swinging. The fair was next, grownup kids Having adult fun Eating carnival food and drinking grownup things When no one was looking. …

I spend my free time writing epitaphs

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I invented a game called Church & State

Transmitter/Receiver

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Valerie had purchased a new cell phone in late 2007, and, say a few months afterwards, in the beginning of 2008 a demon briefly took up residence in it. She had just returned home from running a few errands, and set her phone down on her desk. She had been focusing on…

Paper Thin

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She slipspaper thinshe ripspaper thin