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Soliloquies and Interludes of the Interior Zombies

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As parents watched my skin grow paler, hair/ go raven, and demeanor change from pert/ to smiling calm, they started to complain.

the mixture of pleasure and pain

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But Allison was so tight, poor thing, that it was a little like having sex with a virgin every time we did it. I could never understand how she could bear so much pain. I guess it was the mixture of pleasure and pain that kept her going, or maybe she was

One for the Ages

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It was 1984, that foreboding year, I now recall. You were in the hospital, your cat having snagged your nail.

A Time for Beer

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He lives a simple life, the docks, an occasional woman of questionable morals and brewskis.

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…

Lasagna

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My wife went vegan.

Lingering Over Language

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The mornings he comes in

At a supermarket checkout looking through a window on May Day.

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So I missed the May Day parade again.

It's the Great Conspiracy, Danny Brown

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Danny was only ten years old when he first met the man in the suit. His machine looked like a plotter and it was, sort of, but also something of a plot device.

Little Red Riding Hood, The Woodcutter, Grandma, and The Big Bad Wolf: Their Ongoing True Story

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Grim though it be Little Red Riding Hood and The Woodcutter, with his hewing axe, eviscerate and skin the Big Bad Wolf, thus rescuing sickly Grandma. Grandma’s a bit worse for the wear after her couple of hours in Big Bad’s overstuffed stomach. But she cl

Surprise!

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We were fleeing hurricane Katrina. We stopped somewhere in Texas at a roadside diner, but found a sign that said it was closed. We were so hungry. All of a sudden as we sat there in our car, the shop's owner knocked on the window and asked what he could g

Bruegel days, nights by Bosch

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no matter where we sit or how we stare— / all parades now march away to one day.

Present Conditions

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Our love used to be so artless, / unstained by a knowingness / that perceives time in minutes

The Latest Rock Groups

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Luke Warm and the Sole Contenders. Door Odor Ant. Release My Pajamas! Behemoth Pterodactyls. Dragon Wagons. Mucked Up. The Gosspinator. Italian Film Director. Summer Dress. Unsolicited Advice. Golden Calf. The Gum-Chewin Gurus.…

The Reading

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His wife leans her head against a beam with her eyes closed while he reads out loud. Her mouth shut tightly, almost twisted shut. She’s so weary. She raises her collar and sinks further into her neck. When he shouts, or explodes – nothing.

Now Go Find Your Water

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http://fictionique.com/?p=15392

March for Me

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A son packs his bag - bottled water, extra masks, and jerky. Mom paces behind him. “Don't go.”

The Fixer

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When someone asks me what I do, I tell them that I am a fixer. I fix things. There is nothing that cannot be fixed. Will it ever be as good as new? That is subjective, but I will fix it for you.

Tough Guy

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He remembers his father’s concrete slab hands. Balled into fists they resembled kettlebells.

All Stories Need An Ending

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Drugs, after all, once in the system, demanded unfalteringly more drugs.

The Solace of Olives

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Alone in Eugene, / I sought out / the solace of olives

Puppet X, 4

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I'm not a practicing angel, ladies and gentlemen Got these penny wings out of boredom I need to know that black and grey place inside an angel where you bow your head, when a puppet forgets himself, when a man learns how smal

white lights

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the little white lights i see mean many different things to me

A Borrowed Barrow

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It was a battered, creaky, rickety old thing, this wheelbarrow. It had two wooden handles with cracks running through the wood, a fat rubber wheel and a deep tray encrusted with the mud and plaster and grout that it had transported through decades of heavy use. Based on…

Thieves, a Fire, and Some Pretty Nice Ghosts

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All along scared of the lovesickness finding me. I'm not proud of sending that sweet choir on its way without a kind word chopped into its begging cup. Who cares? I'm scared. The problem is this house; it's sad. I notice when someone floats…

Sisyphus takes the day off

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what-ta-hell, fuck this he snorts brushing the dust from his shoulders

Fabulous Bird

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Just let there be that self-moving thing, a sweet girl mentioned by innocence in an off moment because of her skin, because of the way rain beads up on it.

Peppercorns

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Fertile bodies eye/ the space you occupy,/ impatient for disappearance.

The Time Traveler

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My work is not that sexy and glamorous kind of time travel that you see in the movies with Deloreans and phone booths.

Thanksgiving

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Unless we see it, probe it, Name it, star by star, and feel This awful, tenuous gratitude.