1101 4 2
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Above the chasm of life burn two fires
at either side of the framed painting that
stands on the pink and red plain. And inside
the painting itself an orange rain falls,
accumulating in a sea of red. Rocks can’t stand
their small shadows anymore
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110100
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It's late it's early love youfuck me the difference isin the garage boxes sitbehind me in the trunklike passengers beside melike pedestrians in frontof me I choose our directionwhat stays what comes whatis what and how did I end upin the garage in the first placein the…
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1101139
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I'm complex. You're complex. We're all complex.Who gives a shit? Man's fallen and he can't get up.I consulted Jacques the Atheist for advice: he toldme to beat it. "But I lack the proper stigma!" I cried.Once a month, I volunteer at the dressage parlor.On Tuesdays, I…
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1100104
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amphibians returning to the scene of the crime
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110011
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My girl hit me with an ice cream freezer.
She did it ‘cause she said she didn't want me to tease her.
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110011
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In the morning that same girl I’d seen gave me a tangerine...
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110086
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You know I'm living in the past...
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110020
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Edwin was the last thing I bought. With his uneven eyes and curious leg stumps, he was a must-have. When I showed Edwin to my housemates he was hugged many times, and praised as though he was real. Knowing my housemates, Edwin may have saved some lives…
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110011
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“So, vot you think?” Vladimir asked us. “You want to come see these paintings? This is once in lifetime chance. Not many left who know about these. And I know where they are.”
All the while he kept looking around to make sure nobody was eavesdroppin
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110064
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I wanted you in the worst way
but that's not how I got you.
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110066
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He said hopping trains don't get you out the pot, it only gets you to the other side. But whatever soup you're swimming in, you'll still be swimming in it.
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109944
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He didn't know why he kept writing. There was no reason to write. People ceased reading. They played video games. They watched Netflix. They walked down crowded city streets staring at smartphones. He was sustained in some weird way by the momentum of writing. As if the…
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109900
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Tony's is just a hole in the wall since most people get their sandwiches to go. There's a skinny counter, which was last wiped down during the second Clinton administration, and three tiny tables crammed into a corner.
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109901
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“Kids,” I say, commiserating with my partner Bink. “You can’t live with ‘em, but you can live without ‘em.”
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109921
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I was at the doctor’s office
They had a poster of the Mona Lisa
and the caption underneath it read:
“Why is this woman smiling?”
Well, it wasn’t because she was over 50
and had yearly mammograms
It was because she was 20 something
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109920
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I am skinniest in the morning. My belly forgets the previous day’s sins, and I wake up looking taut like a model. Then it starts.
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109900
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In the upstairs bedroom, the faucet runs wide open, overflowing the garden tub, shoving water to the white tile floor where she lays in a pool of blood. A white package of forty watt bulbs rests beside her sink. A three step ladder lays on its side. The…
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109910
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109911
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My single sculling boat was not made to take the impact of a pickup.
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109800
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It was Christmas Eve. Time for the ghost to visit. Just one ghost in this story. The ghost of a Christmas past. Just one Christmas for just one ghost.He looked out the window. Under the distant streetlight the snow was falling. He turned on his porch light. …
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109800
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We went to the woods to escape the failures that suck out your breath.
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109800
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If the little buildings had hair the hair was as if sleeked back some and also flaxen from the sun. Men walked past there and of course women also all in the requisite wear of the world. We dashed felt pens on curb-sides writing our names in the world and way in behind…
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1098109
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I caught sight of him standing near the nails.
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109843
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you've swallowed a whale bone and not a whole chicken. It's not about being surrounded by very nice stuff. We always thought there was much, much more than haunted walls inside cold castles. People connect the dots like collecting stamps. Things get…
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1098148
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109755
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109730
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There was one girl from Ireland, with her thick Irish brogue, who came into my bedroom early on the morning before my final exam for my Master’s degree in the writing program at U.C Irvine. She knew I was so nervous about taking the exam that I hadn’t sle
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1097116
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is this the end of civilization
is this what i've been thinking of
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109790
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It was late and Manhattan wasn't going to wait for us to wake up. We stumbled off the train — a few puffs of smoke left in our lungs and perfectly disheveled hair that made us look like we were comfortable with our anxiety.Steps weren't getting any easier…
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109700
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I got a call from Fiona last night. She asked that I come down this evening, to meet at Penny's place. "It's an Intervention, Al," she said, which told me everything I needed to know about what the meeting would be about.
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