2198 0 1
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“Do you ever read writingand wish that it was about you?That you caused the epic fucking swell of emotions?That you were the only one capable of the rescue? Do you ever read writingand feel it so intensely?Like every word is an angry and desperate misfiring…
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219899
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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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21983918
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Sometimes, under the gauze and yellow salves, I glimpse you...
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219723
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I am remembering this day for all days. Remembering. All days. Always. This is the day you threw the TV out the upstairs window. I'm remembering. Always. This is the day that started with you shaking the toaster over me so all the crumbs fell out.…
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21972313
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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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2197148
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hunting after dark,/
in the quiet they seemed to appear/ with every new poem I read, each new workshop, some hunting carried on/ by both animals.
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2197126
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I watch as my character falls lifelessly to the ground. I press the square button and I am instantly revived.
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219761
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"My god," Toni said, bending over and tapping her head gently against the counter in fake anguish. "His ass in those jeans. Jesus. I should be young and lucky like you." Toni tapped her cigarette ash into the coin tray.
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219731
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Sure, it was a hot day, but the driver was in the middle of a driving lesson!
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21972515
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Do you suppose you could make your female protagonist a salamander rather than a human?
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21961913
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On the bed he tickled her until she was crying with laughter. And then the tickles became caresses, the fingers, lips.
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2196119
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219675
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You worry that the mullahs suspect us, but that cannot be. We never touch in public. You weep and I shake when a neighbor knocks on the door.
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21962613
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I greatly enjoyed imagining each wonton was one of my personal enemies and then biting it in half and pretending I could hear it screaming piteously as I chuckled and dragged out the chewing.
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21952620
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He boarded the wrong plane. (Hey, it could happen. Maybe not after 9/11, but certainly before)
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219530
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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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219500
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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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219484
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“Can I?” Lily asked.
I gave her a nod. She tore at the package with greedy fingers. As the paper fell away to reveal yet another self-help volume, Lily cocked her head in a gesture of confusion and curiosity. Following her gaze to the lipstick-red
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21941613
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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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219493
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Midway through the fall semester, an unremarkable girl in Professor Woody's Advanced Fiction workshop dyed her hair an unnatural shade of dark, changed her name to Tasmina, and turned in a story filled with made-up words.
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21931411
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“What was the line in the movie Dad?...
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219345
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Very few photos of the bear remain.
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219385
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Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get where you need to be.
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219220
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The journey to Malta would take almost four days.
Both men, with knapsacks and sleeping bags on their backs, stepped eagerly onto the train in Zürich. A whistle blew and they were off. In his knapsack, Grok had brought pictures of his family
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21923914
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The so-called good, a weak but whiny lot, who actually clung to that abstract of "justice for all," would tattle to Mrs. Pufry...Mzzz Puffy, she hit me...Mzzz Puffy he said the bad word...Mzzz Puffy, I gotta go...Mzzz Puffy, Thomas is hanging in the cloak
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219181
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Ted did not understand turn-of-the-century costume dramas, and because he didn’t understand them, he often referred to them as "chick flicks" or "English crap." Even when the principals were not British. Even when the principals were Winona Ryder.
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219187
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Walk alone at night, quietly. Pause for eye contact with raccoons and night cats, your drunk self, and lights in the graveyard. Don't apologize for it in the morning. Instead of the shame you feel for one time acting selfishly and chasing a future, say…
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21902718
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his dreams are filled / with aprons
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219063
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“Hello, this is Natalie Silverman, I’ve been tying to get my prescription filled for over a week. ... Maybe you recall, you did my brain surgery last spring? I’m sorry that there’s still a balance of over eight thousand dollars. I hope you don’t hold tha
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2190135
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It was already dead and was hanging from her ceiling.
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