2298 9 7
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Every night famous authors read not only to us, but to a duck. A wild female who emerged from the lake just as we were gathering, settled her gray-brown feathers down not three feet from the podium, tucked her head inside her wing, and remained there. If the duck liked…
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22983820
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They cut the tall specious tree storms snapped the night in two or three. At times
they pause most piously to count each ring of truth, drive nails into the stiff cathartic spine, divine if this unseasoned cigar topiary agrees with its own everlasting te
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229882
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"Michael has had no drink, no cigarette, no illicit drug and very little illicit sex since September 14, 1989."
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22962111
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“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
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229699
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feeling obligated to write/ is like feeling/ obligated to fuck.
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229661
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I'll be honest, and tell you that I am in a bad way. The weather is very hot up here, extremely so, almost hellish.
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2296143
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Tyler has a Mars bar in his jeans pocket. It’s warm and soft. He tries to insert it.
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229520
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I wore a padded bra. Proud of my tits. D. ordered a Bloody May, I had a vodka tonic. After the second drink I slipped out into the fog, and smoked a little weed. I could see Long Island College Hospital across the street. To my right, the BQE rose up
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22951413
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Are you interested in a new account?
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229521
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It was too young to be love.
We were 5,
a buzz-cut me,
and you,
plated with babyteeth
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229520
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The specialist had kept what he'd taken out of Sue May. I made an appointment with him and was shown it floating in a jar of clean unguent.
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229400
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Ai picked up the ball and noticed the feathers. Wings unfurled and the head looked up. Staring deep into the bird’s eyes, Ai could have sworn she saw flames.
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229463
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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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22943211
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Jane watched her mother remove her wedding ring with butter.
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229353
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He blew out the candle. There was the tang of candle smoke, scattered by a sudden rush of wings, and the immediacy of another breathing thing in the dark. I heard the birdcage open, and the bird fluttering in there without crying out.
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229300
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Azure leaned on the wall outside the gymnasium. She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse and saw the shackle glow. Azure realized that her feet dragged across the ground, leaving behind straight-line grooves on the grass beside the sidewalk.
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229364
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"...if Rosie O'Donnell were to attach a horn to her forehead, she'd move up the ranks as the deadliest creature in the world."
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229310
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I sighed and looked deep into his eyes. “There is nothing more powerful than denial.”
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22932824
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The locals cut stone in quarries, built elevators at the Cummins plant in Columbus, or brewed shine back in the hills between Bean Blossom and Gnaw Bone.
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2293128
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I write in the morning when the world is bendy.
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22932513
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I was sitting on the therapist’s couch in someone else’s boxer shorts.
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2293209
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“Your mother has problems,” he told the kids.
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229296
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Not that their pa really needs the suitcase; he's been coming and going for so long it doesn't matter. The suitcase's just for show. A final goodbye.
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229151
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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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229153
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He looked up as he reached the intersection, and crossed as it cleared. His head was down again as he walked toward his car, which was parked beside a schoolyard, where junior high students were involved in an after-school game of touch football. He smi
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22902114
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229023
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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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229042
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My ghost has already been places I'll never see.
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22901813
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"You know, there really is a death of the heart."
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229032
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"So, is this the datgum exit?"
"Grumphfr exit fregerrock." (This response means either yes, it is, I told you that ten miles ago, or, no it's not, I told you that ten miles ago, depending if it’s the right exit or not.)
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