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Lenin's Paintings

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I was going through Lenin's jewelry and his paintings with a team of experts. I got the idea that I was hired to verify his paintings, although I didn't know he painted.

Second Wife

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If things continue to go bad for her she will become second wife in six years.

Arcana Magi - c.6: Damage Control

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Alysia gritted her teeth, lifted her legs up, and stood straight. She took Reya’s arms with a gentle touch and unlatched them assuring that she was okay. She stood before Oryn with her wings stretched out gathering a wave of heat.

The most tender thing

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Somehow, I have your body, but you’ve gone missing.

Her blue eyes floating on twin clouds of innocent beauty

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The girl I sat next to said she had just looked up in time to see it, Randy, and it was quick thinking that you avoided it. Randy said he nearly missed it and commented on how Judy was the only one in the world who could discover plastic bubble paste, bab

Passing Time

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A surreal conversation in a library hints at something else.

Flipper Avoids the Tuna Can

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I used to sneak away to my bedroom to write. I would get away any chance I could to jot down on paper my stories, my ideas, the rich stream of goodness that sprang from my little baby creative brain. It was pure joy.

The Egg

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It was spring. The stepmother brought her newish daughter to the toy store for a surprise.

Hearts in Exurbia

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Silent Murf was largely toothless, and the gaze from his eyes diverged in opposing directions; his skinny arms were a fancywork of jailhouse tattoos and what appeared to be scabbed-over claw marks.

The Spirit Upwelling

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Too late, I feel a bite under my left heel, but before I can look, I blunder into Robert and Paul rolling across the bedroom floor. They knock me over like a bowling pin, and I grab Robert’s hands and try to pull them from around his father’s neck.

Whatever Happens

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When Matthew calls I'm sautéing garlic for the polenta and Joe is squeezing buttercream rosettes from a Ziploc bag onto a spice cake he made from scratch. Or trying to—we…

The Damned Thing Out

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Something was there. It was undeniable, and he turned to face the padre, whose eyes were now clenched shut. Without asking for further permission, he moved his hand in-between the intestines, which felt like curtains of tightly—wound chorizos. Suddenly

The Messenger, Chapter 1

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It's hard to say who was the first to point a finger towards the sky. Maybe it was the cherubic overall-clad toddler perched on the shoulders of his father's worn brown leather jacket. Maybe it was one of the teenaged girls, their long straight hair whipp

Andrew

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Andrew didn’t need oil and neither did his mother. In fact, the only reason oil was on his mother’s mind was because it was the last thing on her mind. He did not get up to get it, and she did not protest.

Seishin

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The Japanese sun, blood-red and vibrant, like a Cézanne apple, was setting far away in the distance over the snow-capped peak of Mt. Fuji. For a moment, the intensity of the light blinded him. He could not see the road ahead. His front bicycle wheel wobb

When Your Poem Becomes Self Aware

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Where will you hide? Because you know it Will seek you out for answers you might Only be asking for yourself. It Will send many students to stand outside Your apartment and chant your name. It will beg you to perform its birth Again to the…

Ants

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Her husband wouldn’t let her call an exterminator. That doesn't work, he said. The real reason he said no was that he was cheap.

Command Voice

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Go to your room. Children are meant to be seen not heard.

Cholo

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There was that time he decided to avoid the whole situation by getting off the bus early.

Whorehouse Piano Players of the Mississippi Valley

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Imagine, if you will, the heartland of America–the Mississippi River Valley–as a woman sprawled out on a bed.

Legend

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My half-brother Salvy laughs each time we meet here at the hospital to visit our father Phil, who has lung cancer. He laughs because Phil married my mother, not his. He laughs at my job in Valhalla, the final resting place for those who lose at the…

Séjours linguistiques

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I linger and pretend that I’m not there, you find me in the end but I’ll not dare to speak the words I only know to write.

TRAFFIC JAM

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“No Jumping!” Med.z Tony says. I pull open my switchblade and dust off my shoulder.

Glass Handcuffs

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Maybe it's a suicide clock, counting the drops of blood on the bathroom tile. A cancer clock counting the number of good cells still willing to fight. Maybe it's a justice clock, counting the remaining days of freedom you have left.

What I find

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is every word is a small step takenaway from you that arcs back to me likea mamba's mouth. I'm not going aroundin place so much as running in circles. You can see my devilry here. You arethe truth here and that makes me the lie. You'renew morning. I'm much, much more…

Breaking Eyes

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-No, just drugged, I remind myself. The hallucinations are more real, more accurate than before. While the dreams get more nightmarish, the hallucinations get more nostalgic. I prefer the nightmares. No one knows if this treatment will work, but what bett

Margaret’s Mermaid

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When she was eleven, Margaret still believed in mermaids. She would fasten the neon diving rings that her mother gave her to her ankles and swim around in the pool for hours. By the end of the afternoon, with chlorine-swollen skin she would wince as she…

My Anonymous Career

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I signed on with a large national restaurant chain to write descriptors for menus, and I was the very first to use the term "farm-fresh" to refer to eggs.

Walking In My Big Black Boots

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"People do that. They cross the road when they aren’t supposed to and get away with it. They do it all the time. Only, then, he might think I was a rebel and I’d rather he imagine me a square. A square who never was a wild thing. A rebel who chose to be t

Poem for the Poet

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for Bill YarrowPoetry is a way of breathingagainst the enemy's chest withoutlosing consciousness again. Itis a ghost dance. Poetry is tobe determined by the plight of bees.Poetry is a waterfall ona mailing list. I've never tasteda finer whiskey than poetry.Poetry is half…