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The Highwayman Teaches Me About Sex and Death

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hooves moon dark latch eyes rope / Bess the landlord's daughter, the landlord's blackeyed daughter / gun breasts dress shame shouts blood blood blood

Bootstraps

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I made my way quietly out back and sat in Helga’s whitewashed porch swing, listening to the first faint sounds of big band music drift out of Helga’s open windows and into the cooling summer air. The darkness was moving in slow from the east, interrup

The Stick

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When you finally got blood from the hard stick You spotted the backflash of red And said Thank God. The woman’s legs and arms Were everywhere, and you were in the middle Holding her down with one hand while wielding A butterfly in the other. You stuc

When the Ocean Was Ours

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The Ocean used to be ours. When the stars were still fire and they were the only light burning though the dim, hazy nights, the ocean was ours. Before the smog, and the lights that were carried by the men who rose from the sea, the ocean was ours. We…

Catalog of Disappeared Things

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He runs a mail-order business from a storefront and distributes a catalog of disappeared things.

To Be Undone

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. . . hands before your face, heart without blood . . .

The Massacre

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 …

wanna be a cowboy?

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no one likes a bitchy cowboyhike up yer britchespull yer brim down'nshut up and ridestop making petsout of peevesand idolsout of gossipinsteadmake a hobbyout of yer horseand fer godsakesseason that saddle

Locked in a Small-Town Cage with My Superheroes, and Having No Way to Get an MFA... (Memoir)

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...I grew up in a provincial town which at the time had no bookstore and no library — no library even at school...

Moon collar

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I don't think dogs like to die with the pack. The smell of them rotting brings trouble in the wild,

Finite Automatons in Winter Quarter

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To my right, blank stares interchange with closed eyelids on an unkempt face. The minutes drip into the endless sea of night outside the window, each time creating a deeper blackness.

Bus

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You can’t take a chandelier on an emergency dash across a nuclear desert.

Latitude Adjustment

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Down South now means August cold snap, the forties roaring my wool cap off my head.

Joe for Town Council

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“I heard your dad took out the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” said Pat.

1945, What I wanted

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In my innocence and young mind, I thought that kiss would mean that someday we would get married

The Captive

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....sees the beginning of a new day through the closed shutters, hears the guard washing up at the sink, feels the beginning of a cry in his throat.

I Am Wearing Stolen Socks

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I am wearing stolen socks. Not because I haven't any of my own, and not because they are an exact fit. Only because they soothe my emptiness inside.

Dakar 1989

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Everyone runs to the plane but me. I get the last seat (middle of 5), crush men’s bags on my way. I’m white & female. They glare.

Fake Empire (Thanks Matt)

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Your voice is yearning, Like a sad song on the radio, A yarn spun to make hearts break.

the last thing

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salmon maple syrup horseradish smoke detector the list read, scrawled in purple marker on the refrigerator door.

Heart Line

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One sunny morning, a big-bellied ball of yellow fur surveyed a yard full of prospective adopters and ran straight to one. She’d been chosen.

The winter I was going to meetings

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It’ll die in there and the stairwell’ll stink for weeks, Greg says in the car. We’re quiet, considering that.

Mona

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Doc and I talked for several hours. When I told him Mona was pregnant, he turned his head and looked at me. “Who's the father?” he asked. Don't know, I said. Mona didn't know, either.

Hail Mary Pass

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so for penance, the priest gave me the full twelve Stations of the Cross

The Shared Transgender(er)

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...I told Uncle Lou I thought it (trans-gendering) looked like a thoughtful way of occupying the world. It was a personal triumph, for some individuals, over the destructive affects of denial. Besides, it hurt no one, and it didn’t destroy property. I alw

Sociopathic Medicine

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True love may last forever, but the most I've ever gotten out of a lab assistant is two years, five months, three weeks, twelve days, and fifteen hours. And he was the exception.

Arcana Magi - c.24: Desperation

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Oryn woke up in her desk. Sweat trickled from her forehead. Staring at her notepad, with her latest calculation, she forgot to go home. Her thoughts of Alysia calmed for now, but still lingered from her dreams.

Antenna

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When I squint at her from across the table I can see the waveforms created by her carrier signal.

When I Met Ian Curtis

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Okay, no freaking out. I mean, this isn't a suicide note. This is suicide fiction.

Soon to Be a Minor Motion Picture (excerpt)

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Man, you never ceased to crack me up! If you thought you'd just been called a homo, you probably wouldn't want to try to disprove it by grabbing hold of a naked guy and wrestling him to the floor of a shower room.