2218 9 7
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when unicorns took to flight / the poles shifted / the world flooded / and Pangaea busted open like calloused palm
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221763
|
I slide my hand under the sheets. It’s cool there. An impression. This is where she would be.
|
22173119
|
the mighty mountains sighed, and the wide seas heaved
|
221651
|
"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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22162812
|
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22162117
|
There is a tall and leafy tree in our backyard. Also a bride, a groom, and a chicken.
|
221611
|
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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22163514
|
AFTER DINNER Another cycle gone, wasted. She stares into her bowl of full-fat ice cream (just half a cup a day, every day, for fertility). Beside her sits her husband, building a sundae. When he's done she reaches over, picks the cherry off the top, and hurls it into the…
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221543
|
The abandoned body got up and left the room. It was just in time to greet his wife and daughter, who were just coming in the front door.
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221553
|
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
|
22141110
|
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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2214135
|
“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.
|
2214115
|
“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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221310
|
"Isn't it time to remove the nails, and put Jesus to rest once and for all," Mary asks.
|
2213208
|
A supermodel, carrying a large Valentine’s box, fell on the ice.
|
2213183
|
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.
|
221242
|
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…
|
22122422
|
But I came back around, after Robert Kennedy got shot, with one hand up your skirt and the other on the gear shift...
|
221263
|
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.
|
2211118
|
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.
|
221111
|
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.
|
221173
|
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.
|
221011
|
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.
|
221054
|
“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.”
|
2210125
|
We left Louisville two weeks after daddy died...
|
22102012
|
burnt-up leaves rustle and fall
|
220900
|
Before Ciel could ask further, Sora pulled her arm. Ciel turned to the golem summoner and saw the look on her eyes, a silent warning not to push Azure.
|
2209128
|
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.
|
22091612
|
In all my marriage stories, I am both victim and hero.
|
220912
|
That sound. Bone against bone. Skin across skin. Blood fraying into the unknown dark. He loved that sound.
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