2151 6 4
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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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215113
|
While I didn’t like to see Courtney swat smokes out of his mouth and admonish him, saying “Cigarettes. Bad. Fire. Bad,” her home was such a beautiful place, with its real wood and two TV and all...
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21511613
|
I am a purveyor of leeches. All my
friends are purveyors of leeches.
We meet weekly to compare our wares.
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215184
|
He ate husks of bone and old paper scraps with yesterday's headlines, blowing down the street like tumbleweeds now at four o'clock in the morning.He wrapped himself in an old army coat against the November winds as he tramped back and forth, back and forth, up the ten…
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215072
|
There were a lot of advantages to having shoelaces.
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214900
|
He heard her crying out behind the curtain that had been drawn around the bed. Each cry was more strained than the last. She complained about the burning, called the nurses "putane" and threatened to rip out the device they'd inserted into her. He sat t
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214832
|
Rockin' Joe Heath stumbled into the stairwell in nothing but a black Zildjian t-shirt, shushing himself, trying to see right, pounding head. He recalled the old lily pattern of the wallpaper and something about the tattered edges…
|
214886
|
On top of the refrigerator is a small wooden box
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214822
|
His birthday buddy was like a wife to him: they were born a day apart.
This was coordinated, he believe, in the womb. Well, to be more accurate, wombs. She was due two weeks earlier but waited; he two weeks later but cut his womb-time (as the kids call i
|
214898
|
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.
|
214831
|
A canister of unused laughter taken from the mouth of a baby not yet born
A splinter of wood from a cross, perfectly preserved in dark tea
taken from the belly of a dead Irishman
A milky vial of smog taken from the air of Los Angeles circa 1965
A
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2148138
|
I had been in bed for a couple of days and by this I mean sleeping for fifteen or sixteen hours at a time. I don’t think that I believed in God anymore. I no longer knew how to stay awake.
|
214875
|
Pow! I shoot him through his jelly donut.
|
2147209
|
My mother’s old china no longer reflects. It’s value is now estimated as drywall.
|
214720
|
The pizza was perfect, ingredients genuine, not artificial: crust charred slightly; cheese gooey; sauce steaming, requiring careful eating lest the mouth suffer burns. Such quality was becoming rare around town. The product in Manhattan, by and large,
|
214766
|
Everyday the buildings seem to be getting taller and taller.
|
2146189
|
but let's stop and take another look at things
could it be through our closed eyes
that we didn't really know what we were talking about
that there never was a surprise
|
214611
|
They sit, they create, they watch.
|
2146178
|
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…
|
214510
|
Before I was 18 years old, in my small home town of Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, Canada, I invented the designer jean...
|
21452314
|
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...
|
21451313
|
Go ahead, boy, pout like a fool.
|
21451514
|
I see those shoes and the status they confer, and I know what they cost.
|
214454
|
People tell me my personality is a drug. Could be. My shadow is a spine. And I have the current density of copper. A welcoming face. Opium eyes opium thumbs. The piccolo is parenthetical. …
|
214493
|
|
214363
|
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. …
|
214355
|
Your voice is yearning,
Like a sad song on the radio,
A yarn spun to make hearts break.
|
214200
|
Azure spent these years learning how to harness the four elements and find the four creatures that shackled her.
|
214283
|
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…
|
214200
|
On the other side of the world the Moon spun on its way.
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