2018 2 1
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The diner was half filled with the loose ends of humanity that stayed up until five in the morning. We picked a booth by the window. The light in the diner was a dingy yellow, and the seats were that lobster-red vinyl that could only have been installe
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201700
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I had a weird feeling I had just validated his behavior — provided another tile in the mosaic of his ego and self-esteem — by doing nothing more than entering this hall of mirrors, and reflecting.
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201776
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The protagonist’s story goes like this:
1.) You are young. You’ll get over it.
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201731
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“You people remember the thing you learned in science about every action creating its own equal and opposite reaction? The same is true in other realms. All of existence is continually recycled…again and again in infinite permutations. In other words,
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2017103
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They slept in the same bed but that was all they had in common. He, an editor, had shelves filled with literary works and she, his wife of many years and never much of a reader, had strewn their penthouse apartment with Madeline children’s books.
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201787
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Whenever talk dies, or darkness gathers too closely around the breakfast table, everyone knows the list of ritual activities we can brightly suggest to skip the day forward.
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20163113
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“I liked you best in Choke–you were sexy in a lazy, sort of ‘70s way.”
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201693
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I laugh too loud cause the world looks good that way and for a minute we both make funny sounds just to exercise our vocal cords and see how close we can come to the line without crossing.
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201662
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It’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m lying in bed, wide awake, drenched in sweat. I know what I need–a Thin Mint cookie–but I don’t know where I’m gonna find one.
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20162312
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You, the correct Other, the one I am looking for, you have exacting standards concerning where things must go.
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201653
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20161612
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Night's air awhirl, the sky shoots fireflies.
Sometimes, she bleeds black arrows in her dreams.
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2015105
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If it were known that I am as stupid as I am, if the press were to open that page on TV, if the laughter shot itself like fireworks out into the road--
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201510
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I've been struck with a bout of writer's block, struggling to get pen to page or finger to keyboard....So I make paper airplanes.
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201522
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“What’s a hushpuppy?” 264 asked 118, who knew three words of English.
118 said, “No.”
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20152418
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If you’re not dead yet, you’ll die of something.
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201521
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At work I recommended someone go to the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta. I told you about recommending it to someone.
“I always wanted to go back there,” I said.
“You did? You never told me,” you said.
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20153516
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My heart beat someone up the stairwell.
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2014113
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That summer crawled with them, insects of every denomination: cicadas caught by the cat, wingless, came to rest in the roots of the garden we planted; sudden swarms of dragonflies...
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20141010
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the Way that can be mapped leads nowhere.
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2013176
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A young man pushes a stroller filled with a sleepy child. A young woman strides alongside them, her gait leisurely. They are the first to visit the park today. The trees loom, vigilant.
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201367
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In study hall Brandon sat like a little faggot so I said “Hey faggot.”“That's right, faggot. Don't look at me. I don't like faggots looking at me. I don't want their faggot eyes on me, faggot.”Bell rang and he walked like a faggot and held his books…
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201383
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For fifteen years Wendy waited for Harry to leave his wife. From time to time, there’d been ultimatums, break-ups too, but they never stuck. Now Wendy’s luck was about to change.
It was Tuesday, Wendy and Harry’s standing night to be together. His wif
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20131714
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Unfinished, deeply flawed stories require the kind of handling you see in movies where a Virus That Will Doom Mankind is disposed of by scientists in hazmat suits.
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201264
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I find my mother’s pink Pyrex mixing bowl at the antique store on Fairview Avenue. It’s in the hands of a fat woman in a blue down parka, and she’s holding it upside down, squinting at the sticker on the bottom.
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201285
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Your pajamas torture us.
When moist they uncomfortably cling. They have evil buttons, and they cause us to stumble on them in the dark.
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201120
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Alysia never said a word as she rested her body on Suzaku’s feathers. She felt the wings cover her like a blanket. It brought memories of her mother doing the same as they watched a movie together on the couch.
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201073
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Ancient erections loom aloft
ringed by decades
centuries for some
in gnarled scabs of pine.
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20103514
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We were destined by chemistry and plastic figurines to give it a go.
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2010149
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for the rush of longing
and brush with flight
that is her imagination
will surely lift her above the traffic
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