2209 4 2
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I lock the last of the beer and wine doors and head back to the cash register. Our clocks are not on bar time so I only have a few minutes. I check the till. A stack of ones and three fives. Enough to break a twenty, but looking bare. The parking lot's empty. The air…
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22092117
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There is a tall and leafy tree in our backyard. Also a bride, a groom, and a chicken.
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220974
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This part of her digital garden is not impressive, slightly sloppy, even haphazard. However, her avatar is an attractive woman with good make-up.
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220971
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It was a sloppy little factory town that could be beautiful, but never bothered trying. Sits on a big lake. More bars than churches, and too many of both. Racist. We hated anybody who didn’t believe in white Jesus
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22082812
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2208208
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A supermodel, carrying a large Valentine’s box, fell on the ice.
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220754
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“I don’t see how anybody could do it.”
“I could do it. I could do it because it ought to be done. When a thing needs doing, it’s best to go on and do it.”
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2207118
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You’re the girl that would sneak out to poetry readings instead of parties, watching fierce semi-bearded men reading their poems from hand-stapled zines.
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220710
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"Isn't it time to remove the nails, and put Jesus to rest once and for all," Mary asks.
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2207183
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Male genitals were usually portrayed diminutively in classical art. After forty minutes in a drafty room without cloths on, I was beginning to understand why.
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22061515
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What happens in heaven stays in heaven.
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22061110
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1. Allowance
2. Tooth fairy
3. JFK coin savings bank in clear plastic beveled skyscraper tower
4. Ben Franklin iron coin bank
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2206158
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It is pain taking a form, Plato’s dream, born from your hands father that rejected me, giving me the color of abandonment, eyes dulled by isolation, a body deceased without life-giving touch.
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220663
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She...learned the ways of men, especially foreign men, who eyed her mother even as they passed around pictures of their children, wallet-bound photographs that included their reluctantly smiling wives.
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220551
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"From up here the city lights burn like a thousand miles of fire," he croaked, his voice scratchy from sobbing. In pinpoints of illumination he imagined his wife - *former* wife - Calli in that Mustang convertible he'd gotten her for a birthday surprise
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2205128
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The juice that stays on my neck when you tip me back, catching me in an alleyway, holding me upright as the oranges tumble and strike the backs of my knees. You cup your strong-smelling, sticky-soft fingers around my ear and say let's blow this city.
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2205135
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“The price of everything's gone up,” I say. “But I don't have to buy you chocolate if it's costing too much.” She says nothing and bends her head again, gnarled hands slowly breaking a family-sized chocolate block into pieces.
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220521
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round & round
this empty block
again & again i go
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22052422
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But I came back around, after Robert Kennedy got shot, with one hand up your skirt and the other on the gear shift...
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220573
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My daddy made all these gold records on the walls, died, and left me to run BadSmack Media, even if I could only manage to run it aground.
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220553
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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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2204125
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We left Louisville two weeks after daddy died...
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2204115
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“This is not turning out to be a wholesome project,” my brother hissed into the phone one night.
“Yo, Alan, it’s ELVIS. It’s American gothic, and the child needs to know the underbelly of the myth,” I hissed back.“Did you, or did you not, wear makeup to
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220367
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The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an empty…
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220311
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He didn’t know how to tell his story. It wasn’t an easy story to tell. There certainly was a clear beginning, but it didn’t make much sense to start at the beginning. There was no way to end the story either; the ending seemed to last forever.
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2203108
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The girl put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in cupped hands and this was for comfort but she appeared symmetrical the way an etheric visitor might and the brightness was just then trying to find a way through an opening in morning dining room…
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220222
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It's true that he had always been more pure than her, looking for the authentic experience, authentic food. And more adventurous. Blogging their way around the world, yes, that had been his idea . . .
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220260
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Maybelline Jones is my sister, my friend, and I try to tell her the right way to be.
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220111
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And here I am again.
I chew my nails. I tap my foot. I chew my nails. I sweat. I bleed. My nose bleeds. It drips. I drip. I'm dripping through my chair.
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22012012
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burnt-up leaves rustle and fall
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