2309 3 0
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I came down with polio on September 15, 1953, a mild, smoky day drawing close to autumn outside of Chicago — which also happened to be the exact date of my parents' twenty-first wedding anniversary. Only six months later the Salk vaccine was already b
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23094111
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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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230811
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We do not say to the fish, “How do you pronounce your name?” For its name is long and colorful, like the rainbow. We can pound the kalo plant into sweetened poi before it answers.
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23062313
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Could sampans fall upward, sailing from the bottom of the Earth? If so, which way would their sails bend—up, or down? And would the strange China Sea follow suit? Would salt water geysers spurt from the hole we dug, flooding the streets of Seattle?
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2306157
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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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230600
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While I tried to work calmly, internally it was a non-Zen zone. I was experiencing a major adrenalin rush.
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230656
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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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230520
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Frankie's girl had a habit of making any guy she walked past turn his head and lose his entire train of thought-we all knew it. Frankie was the only one who asked her out to have lasted long enough and worked hard enough to the point of putting a ring on
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230500
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The next day, John's kneecaps looked like Tennessee Pride Real Country Sausage. The bandage on his head kept coming loose, having to be tucked in, and he was suffering the Stone Mountain of hangovers.
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2305157
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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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230432
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I decided this time I’m going right to the end.
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230343
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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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230331
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Polo could sense the tension with his group. He was unsure what the creatures would do to them.
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23034112
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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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23022313
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230200
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A poison bouquet of Merlot and brown floor muck bloomed in Seth’s nose. It’s one thing to sniff a freshly decanted red and another thing to shower in it.
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2301135
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It was already dead and was hanging from her ceiling.
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2301189
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Jesus will walk on the water.
Judas will walk on a technicality.
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230121
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I hope you and asshole are having a good time.
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23011812
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Go to your room. Children are meant to be seen not heard.
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230043
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Rudely awakened, confused and bewildered, he stood stone silent and watched me flee. I barely managed to keep my wits together, didn't and couldn't pretend that I wasn't running out of his bedroom as if my life depended on it. He wouldn't call me a cab,
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23001613
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1. Everyone disappears.2. Stars map themselves.3. The moon fills her bathtub over and over. You can't watch it for too long or you go mad, shouting, "Just get in, get in!"4. The ghosts of certain broken poets stand under apple trees and lean their hands on the…
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230099
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Arthur farts. Pandemonium. Miss O'Kelly shouts, “Quiet!” 32 nine year-olds freeze. “Close your books, fold your hands on your desk, put your heads down.” Obedience. Silence. Until…
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2300143
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He hunched low and forward on his bike, his 14-year old self, flying down the dusty back roads of this Great Midwestern Land, his head full of the smell of the algebraic girl he sat behind in math class just hours ago.
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230099
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Quite frankly you are ruining my life. / I know you don’t mean to, but you are.
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23002716
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"A prostitute of the Hotel Khadijah in Rahab fell in love with my father...."
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22991510
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Life was small. It was tiny even, so tiny it was hard to see it sometimes. Life curled up to make itself even smaller, to fit into the kinds of holes that insects crawl into to get away from bigger insects. Life was sad. Life didn't want to be an insect.
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229870
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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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229800
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Her body shivered from the liquid and she felt loose. Her mind relaxed and a veil of pink mist covered her body.
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229811
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Pushing his jeans down around his ankles, he knelt, and pressed his moist dipstick against my hole. “Do you always do this on a first date?” he said
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