2208 2 3
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Once Mom finally came to terms with the fact that my brother was gay, she became convinced he was a serial killer. “He has all the signs,” she told me as she trimmed my hair. “Signs?” I asked, watching her in the…
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22081410
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I can never tell if he’s drunk or using some sort of substance or if perhaps his brain just doesn’t fire at the pace that we have come to accept as normal.
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220884
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All the neighborhood kids waited for the school bus on a small cement slab at the bottom of the first big hill on Blackhorse Road. My mother made me scrambled egg sandwiches on wheat toast every morning for breakfast before I left for school. Then one mor
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220873
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Smoke is pouring outta my ears! (And outta my mouth and nostrils, but that's normal.) The Fast-o-matic Supermart has changed their coupons. Now you can't swap them for plastic surgery. So all those tubes of New Orleans-style Cottil-i-Lard dog sausage…
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220766
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He didn’t used to smell that way, like a rained-on boot, like the insides of a lived-on couch. ... He used to smell like he wore light, subcutaneous cologne.
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2207119
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Dude -- I DON'T want to date your boat!
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220700
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When the scrapbook came out this time, I noticed a photo I hadn't seen before, the Baroness with her arm around the waist of Princess Diana. A lavish display of blooms towered behind them.
"Did you know her?" the florist asked.
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22062416
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He would lean on his window sill in the evening and watch the whores. They wore gaudy clothes and too much makeup.
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22062513
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I was sitting on the therapist’s couch in someone else’s boxer shorts.
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2206144
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He had the cannonball head of Hemingway, the stump neck, sloping shoulders and barrel chest.
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22063211
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Jane watched her mother remove her wedding ring with butter.
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22052114
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220564
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burning for You, caught in between, yearning to remain completely wrapped around Your finger, feeling panoramic, and this alive.
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220564
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The last time Ray and I broke up, I flew my flag at half-mast. It was the kind of thing that pissed him off. He was very big on flag etiquette: how the flag should be folded, the fact that it should never touch the ground, when to fly it at half-mast, the rules regarding…
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220453
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For the woman with no arms, life is a constant dexterity demonstration
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220451
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I’ve never liked birds. There’s something smug about the way they look at us, we prisoners of gravity, something self-congratulatory in their songs. Maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings about being stuck on the ground, attributing attitudes t
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2204117
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It had been Tom at the wharf who strode over to greet me, his friend Tom with the small spectacles standing at the bar. “Write it when you get home,” Bella said. I was wearing the same beads.
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2204119
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Traveling with a live chicken on a city bus is an experience I hope never to repeat.
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22042318
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a poem about an abduction in my NYC neighborhood
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220383
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Was I a dreamer? Was I asking for too much?
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22032617
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The Batman says it's his birthday. I take him at his word.
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2203147
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a question that (never) left
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220244
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Blueberries are like testicles: you have to hold them gently, from underneath.
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22011410
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. . . and the last thing you’ll smell will be new-cut pine.
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22012111
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" trout hovered in a sun-dappled pool"
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220186
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It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…
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220163
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I slide my hand under the sheets. It’s cool there. An impression. This is where she would be.
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220120
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I was afraid of needles and ponds of water and I was transfixed by both.
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220121
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Harry Reed does not want to die in this room, in front of Giselle, who has been his wife for exactly six months, who has slept beside him for twelve months.
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220111
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“You’re off till Monday,” the big man told him. “You can thank Mr. Big Mouth and company for that. Death detail gets two days off.”
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