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A Frog in a Well

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Ikkyu liked coming over especially at dinner. I'm a great cook and even though he no longer needed to eat himself, the idea of a sumptuous meal and a nice bottle of wine appealed to him. We'd commune about the poetry of karma flowers, seafood, and women, he in his robes and…

Gerade rechts zum Volkszimmer

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So, we are all healthy but suffering financially, not equally so, and the tendency to suffer financially has been caused by humbling ourselves to particular men. We take a quiz in moral values, phrased as a party game.

Winter Kills

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And on nights like those I conjure Martha's childhood, a little girl who could make the whole world fall in love with her, with those goddam big seashell eyes, enticing adults to fall into a blue-green sea that never ends, never promises survival.

Secrets

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The one he liked best was a middle aged woman who didn't wear underwear. She had a terrific figure.

The Apostate

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A crone dressed in black pours liquid from a bottle onto the egg. Whiskey. Gasp! The egg cooks before our eyes!

Passing Past

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No one means to go that way, on an errand to the mall....

Born Too Soon: America's Hottest Teachers

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The teachers who get caught propositioning male students are always wholesome family women. This is why I have repeatedly called for regular round-ups of wholesome family women before another young man’s morals are corrupted.

A Necessary Evil

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But it was a necessary evil and one he’d made peace with, easy to do when he arrived home each day to the comforting touch of his wife, his home.

The Grief Counselor

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At first she kept repeating "I don’t know why he's doing this" as if the cops thought she was mixed up in it somehow. When they convinced her that all she needed to do was talk to her brother and tell him to give himself up, she looked hopeless.

Post-Mortem

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She threw the wine glass on the floor.

Boys of Summer in Yonkers (Memoir Excerpt # 2)

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I am coming to understand how many memories of my father involve him, driving

No, You Don’t Know What I am Thinking

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Scratch his eyes out, flashed through Edgar's head, scratch his eyes out.

Samosely

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If you’re not dead yet, you’ll die of something.

The Making of Mermaids

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You ran so quickly for a while no one could find you. Finally, you sent us a report. You had retreated to the sea, you had your legs stitched together, you became a mermaid and were applying to join the school.

Wild Dreams of Reality, 4

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It was days before Parker and I could even get up the nerve to look in each others' direction at the cafe. We kept trying to avoid the other's glance. But after a time things began to soften between us. I could sense it the day the tension began to eas

Saving Grace

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It essentially comes down to this: If you have nothing left but paper, all you can really use it for is wiping your behind if you’re in a jam.

Crisis Junkie

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  A lot of people are like this--they thrive on On conflict   My bartender is that way-she likes the Confrontation She wants to fight and argue and haggle And I never related to this In anyone Well, people are scared, or pretend to be Scared at the bar. Some…

Finger Weaving A Voyageur Sash

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Night's air awhirl, the sky shoots fireflies. Sometimes, she bleeds black arrows in her dreams.

Conjured love

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Love heals. Lovers know this from the start, Yet they may not know with certainty What love is. Not that it matters especially When they find the magic within the power Of unfolding lust, Of redemption, Of unmitigated joy. There's a mutual…

Subway Imitator

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The imitator’s segue to his sad life story was, “But what isn’t funny…”

Science Homework

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The difficulty of disabled parenting was predictable, but nothing could prepare me for having to say goodbye to my wife again on problem #7.

Almighty Pink Slip

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I fired God today. He wasn't showing up for work, slept through meetings, wrote ambiguous memos and killed too many innocents. Things just weren't working out.

Sleep With The Fishes

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Pull her from the water and check her pockets. Shouldn’t death tattoo a message on each palm it removes the pulse from.

With Ann Coulter on the Jewish Conversion Tour

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A little bony for my tastes–I wonder if she’s on the Lady Di diet. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, but it would be like sleeping with Eva Braun.

Before and After

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My heart beat someone up the stairwell.

i am so fucking unsold

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i am wire i am wiredi am soaking fucking tiredi am sorry i am coldi am so fucking unsoldi am endlessi am statici am past lost time fanatici am wounded i am seethingi am bothered angry leaving.i am metal i am wateri am sister fucking daughteri am nothing i am lazyi am…

I Wrote a Book

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About halfway through reading some book that was supposed to be some really deep shit, I decided to write my own book instead.

once upon a time in Sumeria

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Suddenly there was a crash of thunder, and they raised their eyes for the first time heavenwards. That was the beginning of what we call civilisation. - adapted from Prolegomena to Work in Progress — Stuart GilbertIt's the third year of the third millenium,…

George

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he makes his way back / to the ocean, back to the popcorn, back / to the pinball machines

Home in Biloxi

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Her father stuffed years worth of stories into the phone, a sort of begging: how the new dog rode in the golf cart and retrieved lost Pinnacles; how the garage’s rent was too expensive; how the doctor gave him new pills and how he had lost weight and cu