2216 5 6
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We get prepped for the big finale, and we don't want the guy who turns up with the scythe to be Jo-Jo the dog-faced boy.
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2215 4 3
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The abandoned body got up and left the room. It was just in time to greet his wife and daughter, who were just coming in the front door.
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2214 15 11
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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…
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2214 9 10
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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…
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2213 3 3
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'Tis a cruel season. I have nothing and no means to order anything. Nobody to shop for and nobody to buy things for me. But the catalogues keep coming. And these catalogues don't bring out the best in me. The catalogues switch on what I call my want switc
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2213 3 3
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Eddie Dorsett was a dumb kid. Nobody could dispute it. More than that, Eddie Dorsett was a fat, slothful, whining, shilly-shallying, phlegmatic zero of a kid, the lowest of the third-graders for certain and a prime contender for the lowest of the entire R
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2213 14 11
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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.
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2213 3 1
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It was the end of a New York City summer, the heat and humidity thick all around. But in her body it was an unforgiving winter, the memory of pain always leaving her cold
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2212 5 3
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Hey there little hippie girl, smilin’ to the ears and dripping with scarves,
I cherish our friendship.
However, every time you take off your shoes to dance at a rock show,
hair swingin’ like silk vines in the paradise that is your shaking ass...
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2212 41 11
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He drove down there in his truck the second time. Didn't want to get anywhere near that snooty car of hers.
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2212 4 2
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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.
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2211 3 3
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Two friends follow the train tracks by their neighborhood.
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2211 7 4
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I looked at her greying face and wrinkling hair and tried to fathom why my counsellor was suddenly being such a bitch.
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2211 15 7
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Now he took his guitar in hand, and at once he felt a strange fiery sensation rise from the soles of his feet, to the palms of his hands, to the tips of his fingers: the Duende. It was that mystical force poets can sense, and no philosopher can explain.
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2211 41 12
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Within seconds, I strip her free of all that she wears. Her toes are polished the color of plump pink tulips.
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2210 4 3
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I. When I was young, my best friend was only three inches high. He was chubby, always cheerful, and very funny. He didn't start out as anything much. I always imagined he came into being in a small factory, in China, at the mercy of two small, yellow hands and a …
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2210 17 1
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We are in search of free hor d’oeuvres, me and Jane – Jane from H.R., Jane who is exactly as plain as her name implies, Jane, who, for now anyway, for this company retreat, is my kindred spirit in broke-ass hangover land.
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2209 10 6
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Grief is to have given freely too unfreely. Grief is to have given one year too many. Wicked is to have wanted it to be given away that way. Wicked is to Sam as duty is to Mother. Sam’s wife is to his friend’s wife as one Mercedes to another.
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2208 31 16
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Everyone is botching everything, even the rescue team. They can't get to me. I am surrounded by people who don't know a fatal wound when they see one. I am so determined to live that I become bossy.
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2208 20 12
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...I pray for the animal souls I have taken -- panther, gazelle, hyena, vulture...
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2208 15 7
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“Black is up, red is down,” I said, knowing he turned to pleasant memories of lawbreaking when he felt discouraged. I asked him to meet me for coffee. He said he hadn’t bought a coffee in a year.
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2207 23 13
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2207 23 8
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2207 9 4
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I was a gangly 11 years old, a year before the Watergate hearings pre-empted the afternoon cartoons on television, when I discovered an uncle's girlie magazine during routine reconnaissance of my grandmother's hall closet.
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2206 12 10
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I would love to believe
that this poem
might sell a poetry book
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2206 0 1
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Gordon He pressed the side of his face to the pillow and waited for the sound of birds. The room was black, the window open; when a breeze came the curtains billowed out against a lighter sky. He heard the clock. He heard the dry sound of Helen breathing;…
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2205 3 2
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I decided this time I’m going right to the end.
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2205 9 5
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Moans and whispers woke me. I rubbed crust from my eyes and glanced at the G.I. Joe clock on my nightstand. 9:36. I pulled the covers back and stumbled out of my room. The living room light was on. Father Osborne's black suit coat was draped over the back of the couch. He…
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2205 7 0
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We both lost our appetites, her sense of taste destroyed by the tide of smoke sweeping across her tongue, wiping out her taste buds. Mine was limited to the four tastes the tongue alone could discern,
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2203 1 1
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Alaina paced around in the green room. She couldn't believe she had agreed to do this. Her friends had told her it would be an excellent idea. How can agreeing to marry a total stranger on national television a decent idea, let alone an excellent one? "Oh Lain, it'll be…
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