2091 2 2
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There are worse things than getting your ass kicked by a 12 year old Puerto Rican kid. This was exactly my thinking as he stood over me, his pre-pubescent screams sounding like a baby Bruce Lee, preparing to finish me off.
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209000
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Alysia slowed down for a moment. She clutched her head again. She looked up and found herself at a playground. There was a familiarity in the air.
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208932
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208900
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My father said that he had been ready for that journey for many days past and that he had asked often for the spirits to come and take him. He prayed to the god of the heavens and to the earth mother. He prayed for the three of us, and he prayed for the s
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20891313
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Go ahead, boy, pout like a fool.
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20892618
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sooner or later you realize
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208822
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That's when we struggle, got it? Right there on the floor. It's not the brawl of the century, and I'm not the pilot who delivers the Enola Gay.
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20881010
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Bob’s thoughts drift back to bird, the solitary creature in the field, dignified, unhurried, waiting. Bob wonders where he goes; surely he will move on when spring gives way to summer.
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208886
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Len and I sit on Harpo's porch, drink beer and gab. It's hot, even for July. Len and I joke and laugh, and Harpo stares off into the middle distance.
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2088148
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once she went to quenchthen she went to scrubnow she collects dead toadsgrinds them with cornmeal to feed her sowsonce she ploughed the land toiled with her face deep in dark soil her back burning in hot sunnow she works in the paper millmaking laminated labels for the…
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208698
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Turns out it was you. But. You made it into the latest dumping ground in spite of their voted insults. In spite of being told you weren't even going to be around to be danced with. The loneliest girl now looks perfectly trim and trendy to all eyes.…
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20862713
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This is not a story you expect to end at Cape Horn.
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2086109
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I hear the slightly scratched voice of Joan Baez coming from
the record player singing about the junipers in the pale moonlight,
applause erupting like hailstone on a corrugated iron roof.
I am singing back through the bedroom wall,
wishing the
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208692
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“Dad’s a dick,” my sister said. I nodded. He threw $20 on the candy counter for one small bag of popcorn and told the girl to keep the change.
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208683
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Morning claims me from sleep before I can say noYou wake up instantly from your alarm clock's ringYou are bright, enthusiastic, ready to cooperateIt will be a good dayYou shower, dress and I prepare your breakfastEggs, soft, toast two ways, one with salmon cream cheese,One…
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208663
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Danny said that you like him now. He smiled like it was the best news that he could give me, but his eyes dared me. …
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208610
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Forever
Implies
To my recycled soul
That it is achievable
If only I stretch myself
Towards it
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208685
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I could love them all, your people, /
Learn their differences, speak their tongues, /
When there is no one there to hold you /
But me, my arms would be wide enough /
To hold armies of your need. Do not forget.
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208501
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#1 MISCELLANEOUS NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
What kind of person would the author’s daughter, Gracie, become? That things didn’t look bright for her future was an understatement: Mother: alcoholic, dead at age 25 from puking her brains out; Father: m
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208564
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“I better go. My mom needs me at home,” she says. Soft. Smooth. Firm. Sweet. Maybe I’m pushing too hard. I kiss her on the cheek and she stiffens in response. My heart bleats.
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208540
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Remember me? I am the large, dented acorn you threw at your brother, Ken, during the huge acorn war of 1969. You were thirteen. He was eleven. And the entire neighborhood was in your backyard that day. Steve, Jack, Jerry, Tom, Dan, Jeff, Drew. A bunch of the kids…
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208520
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A black wind raced ahead of the Merbreth and Juko could smell the thing's fur, matted with the blood of men. The coppery scent mingled with the fear coming off the men around him, a fear so palpable it became a tangible thing, something to be tripped over
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208498
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my father has a phobia of dentists./ he also once felt/ that if the house ran out of toilet paper/ he would lose his job.
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208422
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“You wouldn't believe it.” Peter leaned in to whisper. “Don’t let the Kodak moment with the wife and kids fool you. That guy is totally gay.”
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20842118
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There can be no convergence./
There is only the talking that talks about/
an angle of sight nothing else can share.
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2084104
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Ma tells me not to put a tampon between my legs. For fear of cotton fornication.
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20843017
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It was a surprise they put me in a dormitory, not a cell,
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208411
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They sit, they create, they watch.
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2084108
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a mid-life crisis in 55 words
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2084178
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I kiss his sunburned nose, so nice under the beach house. We hear the shower of palm leaves like wings getting ready. We talk about a time we'll no longer know each other, when he'll be sad in a bar in another state, slipping and sliding and petting lost dogs in the parking…
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