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Boring Boy

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Deslauriers taught that of the five derogatory items a girl could be—bitch, slut, tease, frigid, whore—tease was the worst. Having a German Shepherd at home protected Liz. My family had a cat, female and black.

Get More Protein From Your Music

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“Kids,” I say, commiserating with my partner Bink. “You can’t live with ‘em, but you can live without ‘em.”

Born of Flight

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I can walk among words, Scatter them like birds, to compose two thirds of a poem, when they settle on nearby wires, in an order inspiring wonder. What do they think, when I scatter them asunder. Bring them disarray, Shape them to a…

how gravity keeps time

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into the Zone of Avoidance gazes sink/ ―and why not? a black hole at the heart of it,/gravity attracts even our vision when/ we lift our gazes . . .

the custodial cats of the fulcrum of memory + three

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“the calendar of my future was in there!”/ yes: all tomorrows belong to the dead cats,/ their decisions relinquish one day per day.

Galactic Bow Shock Romance

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Somewhere outside of the future I am seeing Weinberg, the duplicate failed mimeographed onto the front of ourselvescompromised composite grown from a codependent blastocyte talking to the boxes on the edge of tomorrow, collectiblecrystal lined folliclesharvested at the peak…

Walking Green

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1. There is a crowd of people walking to a field and since there are over forty of them, the conversations become divided and then subdivided in accordance w/natural rhythms. I follow behind. It is a football game. Makeshift. Twenty aside roughly. Almost every…

Toad

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“I come from a long line of Toad Kings,” Huckleberry said, “and we never back down from a bet.”Phyllis, a great white heron, lowered her long white neck so she could get a better look into her friend's golden eyes.“I just think you…

The Hot Earth

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don’t let them take away our youth, even if we have to beat the paint out of birds the way we did when we were young. I knew we could do anything, so let’s go back into that world and describe the new dawn all over again, even if we have to use the frozen

Why Is This Woman Smiling?

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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

otherwise, chaos!

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The tongue touches the lip, looking inward, remembering. The head nodding yes. Staring directly at the memory like an animal, while the crowds pass by, and occasional phrases materialize out of the air. We live and love and create. Yes we do. Otherwise,

Lavender Blur

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Donna and I get out of the car...

Epicure

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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…

Yeopim Pork Men

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The trio stuffed their grilling equipment in a battered van and left for Dixieland Speedway at 4:30 am.

Frankly, I'm Not Doing Well

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TW: Self-harm. I wanted to write a mental health essay that wasn't all rah! rah! and with as little sentimentality as possible. Out of everything I've published, I've gotten the most feedback from this--people telling me it helped them understand a loved one better, etc.…

Islands

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Off of the northeastern coastline there was a series of islands that won bread and butter through fishing. We walked off the ferry and through various docks while noticing vessels come in slowly boasting sides protected by worn plastic fenders on ropes affixed to…

eritis sicut deus

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—but neither Lenin’s serenity nor Voron’s could last for long!

Yes Virginia, There is a Trustee in Bankruptcy

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“I thought bankruptcy was for people who didn’t have any money.” Skipper said. “Not exactly. It takes a lot of money to go broke,” I said, hoping to teach him an important lesson about thrift.

He Dreams of a Small Boat at Sea

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He dreams again of ocean devoid of shore

The Problem With Oils

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If you were a painter, and I a poet, we could have conversations about Picasso and Bukowski, and how neither one took a sober breath.

The looking glass predator

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In the mirror an owl staring you in the face once again,/a fraught fragment of life’s puzzle. But you pretend it’s. . . .

Demons

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Michael had become quite accustomed to his morning routine. He woke at seven, made his coffee, and stepped onto the front porch with a steaming cup and a fresh cigarette. He sat there for ten minutes or so, watching the neighborhood prepare for their d

Maybe I Was Better At Shaving My Legs Than I Was At Spreading My Wings

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That new rain smell in your backyard, specifically I remember that, with you. And lying in the grass in a park with you on the 4th of July, maybe in Lombard, watching the blue/grey smoke of the fireworks drifting overhead after they went off, and the sm

No More Ideas

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And then, one fateful day, the world ran out of ideas. The last one was gone, floating away like a balloon full of the helium we had already squandered.

my own image breaking and falling

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What went racing through my mind as Lynda was telling me about the farmer she was seeing out in Western Illinois with his 12 inch dick? She was only 5’2”. “It’s so big I can barely get it all in me,” she said, with her mouth part way open. That old look

A Slippery Slope

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a distinct hardness that translates into solidity, and a lightness that translates into beauty, and I thought I’d find you there,

Dreams

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"Is a dream a lie if it don't come true, or is…

Rootless

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[This story is not racist!]

The Thank You Parade

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Let's go now with those precisely marching shiny cloud band members, so eagerly clanging their golden sleeves togetherover there in the valley of new light, for instance. They can lift wholeoceans up, like baby children, for a seriesof smooches, all of…

Kitchen Consciousness

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she's bent over and reaching into the oven to pour fat over a chicken. I just want to tug those pants down and thrust.