2107 4 2
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Dale of the threadbare corduroy blazer and the same two plaid button-down shirts, of the unkempt beard and short-shorn hair and holed ears, the plugs overloose and then lost so that the effect was not a toughening edginess, but deformity, the same self-in
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210765
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In my own case, before Ellen, of course there was someone else. She—well, she was someone who I felt as if I’d always known and always would. And I think she felt the same about me.
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210793
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Our city is really two cities, conjoined. One lives during the day, the other at night. Those who live and breathe daytime air call the city by one name, a name which evokes the relative newness of the place, a name with words just barely invented.…
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21071210
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by myself next to just one wide-eyed moment of wild blued out ocean. You know the one I mean. I don't want to have to speak to you, or even- alone- to myself. I'd like to be left inside the poem it makes me feel without having to get up and pee every…
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210775
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When I was fifteen and we were moving to Mississippi, my boyfriend in Canada told me I was going to live in the swamp with the alligators. I didn’t understand why my father would pick such a hick place. Rob gave me his cricket bat to hang over my bed, a
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2107104
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I feel a strange loneliness for her...I think I will go to the beach, and forgive it for its sharp sand and lack of trees.
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2106109
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When you think I'm not looking,
I always am.
You say it's like nicotine, your best analogy as a non-smoker.
The kind of hit that is hard to live without and isn't it human nature,
you ponder.
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210610
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Daddy? Yes, hun. What do you think about life? Did you ask your mother? I'm asking you. (lowers newspaper) Well, (squinting eyes) life gives you so much pumpkin. ! and (like a whip) and..? (brows almost touching the hairline)…
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210621
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“Jus’ because a story told right don’t make it true,” he said. “Sometimes the story is there ain’t no story. Sometimes you look way down inside, and ain’t nuthin’ there. Can’t write no book ‘bout nuthin’. Won’t sell none. But them
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21062416
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I stared out the window, the fog creeped up the Avenues like a spectator.
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210620
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Left, I see parkland and cyclists and sun. Right: picnic blankets, naked men and lunchtime assignations.
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21061411
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She was petite, pear-shaped, white, the girlfriend of a friend who'd done his degree in Russian Literature, but that's not the only reason I liked him. The husband I had for a while traveled whether he needed to or not and so I'd go with Julie and Phillip to movies,…
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2106114
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Everything is illuminated. If anyone is watching, we look happy.
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2106910
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No one knows that, while the ex-Area 51 guy delivered his rant, Art Bell left the booth for a Diet Coke.
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210694
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Every morning, the children dig holes for their parents. This is both necessary and beneficial: the kids need to dig and the parents have to be buried.
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210601
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“Charlie was right about you, Nan,” she said in a voice of pure defeat. “You are a gentle spirit. And probably too good for people like us.”
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2106136
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You are a boy with a birthday bike smiling like our son, standing in a photograph surrounded by other sons, who turn rocks over and over, who keep snakes in plastic bread bags, who find the bones of something wild in the woods. You smile that way still.
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210582
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It was Warren who introduced me to this bouncer fellow named John O’Toole. Warren met O’Toole and his wife, Angelina, through the dark prison poet Eugene Forcer. Forcer and O’Toole were the best of friends until a riff erupted between them one drunken n
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21054722
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Only strong personalities can endure such size, the weak ones are extinguished by it.
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210495
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Last night in the shower, I felt only vaguely aware that something in me had changed.
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210400
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For years I watched behind the glass
While merry parties purpled past
But now the world’s a Solemn Mass
And I can only think.
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210311
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This is the story of my friend, Gil
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210363
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"Hattie? What are you doing?" Bosley asked, the quaver in his voice an indication of an impending erection.
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21022216
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My mother used to say she'll be just like you and you‘ll deserve it. I was a Punk Rocker. A rebel. Emily worries about things like grades and sports. She's on the soccer team. I got stoned under the bleachers. Emily, is a good kid. …
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210273
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“You’ll have to do better than that,” Skip says.
My husband laughs. He has a high girlish chuckle when he’s truly delighted. He can sing really high like a girl, too.
“All right,” I say. I leave my headband
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210283
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21023313
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There was dad sitting at the table, wide awake, reading glasses on nose, pen in hand above a Doppler graph of numbers on paper, one of many now-lost theorems, looking up as his son walked into the room.
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210210
|
That stupid bastard seemed to defy death at every turn in his life. His actions suggested invincibility, but his catch phrase indicated full awareness that he was indeed quite vincible.
And how fitting was his name. We didn’t know if it
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21022314
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Henry yells at her when she lights cigarettes and candles. But this is her small secret ritual, her way of making good with the god she is no longer sure she believes in...
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21021313
|
He stays a couple of yards behind me as we slog uphill. I try to diffuse the tension with a coy toss of head, slip on wet leaves. My ankle rolls and I splat noisily down. From my new angle his beard looks less stylish—bristles straggle all up his neck. He maintains…
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