2207 1 1
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Light was always fucking with you in LA, especially in the afternoon where it possessed a golden hue that could knock you over if you weren’t careful. Its beauty reminded you of what you lacked.
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2206118
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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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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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220673
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We walk in silence. We water our plants. We don’t eat as well as we should. We try to love. We try to forget.
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2206208
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A supermodel, carrying a large Valentine’s box, fell on the ice.
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220610
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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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220553
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“I take him to see all those sexy movies,” she said, “because it puts the passion back in him. I love what he does to me when we get back home after those movies.”
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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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220554
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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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22052117
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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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2205239
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Fred, who by that point had already wanted to call Jimmy "Jim," talked a river. Jimmy, who had already called her Freddy, took a mojo bag from his back pants pocket and asked her to write something that he could put inside.
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220582
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“They’re Rocky Mountain Oysters,” the blond said. “Fresh. You’ll absolutely love them Jim.”
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22041110
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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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22041515
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What happens in heaven stays in heaven.
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220421
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round & round
this empty block
again & again i go
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2204135
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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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220451
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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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220363
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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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220373
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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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220267
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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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2202115
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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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2202128
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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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2202125
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We left Louisville two weeks after daddy died...
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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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22002012
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burnt-up leaves rustle and fall
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2200108
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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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220053
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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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21994314
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Tuesdays she worked afternoons at the bookstore, and he’d secretly go, buy a large order, sit in a corner with a newspaper. Fries covered in vinegar, veins of ketchup.
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219900
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The palm trees bent upon her passing stride
From fishnet stockings running up her hide;
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219960
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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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