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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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232900
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Of course, there was one love Danica had in her heart that stood above all those luxuries, magic.
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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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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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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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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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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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While I tried to work calmly, internally it was a non-Zen zone. I was experiencing a major adrenalin rush.
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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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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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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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Martín stood over the slow, labored panting as if it were a mystery he could not explain. The dog lay on the frayed pillow bed, a knot of fur and skin, in his father’s office. One eye, like an almond floating in milk, stared up at the boy.
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I decided this time I’m going right to the end.
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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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Women with tremulous breasts. Going down the swimming pool drain.
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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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I hope you and asshole are having a good time.
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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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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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On the bus Jenna looked out the window at the bleak fuckscape.
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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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Jesus will walk on the water.
Judas will walk on a technicality.
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231713
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I’m at the kitchen sink washing down pills when they bump up my driveway in a blue Toyota pick up, its bed eaten through with rust so bad I can see past the holes in the body to the frame.
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I ask because she's the animal person, not me. She understands animal behavior.
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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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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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I learned to love what we had: the long, bright days, the water all around us, and even their slithery bodies, which somehow never dried under the pounding sun.
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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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